Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Scientific paper
1997-01-07
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
LaTeX file, 13 pages. Reference added, typos and an arithmetic factor corrected. Results unchanged. Significance of strong ene
Scientific paper
We derive the wave equation obeyed by electromagnetic fields in curved spacetime. We find that there are Riemann and Ricci curvature coupling terms to the photon polarisation which result in a polarisation dependent deviation of the photon trajectories from null geodesics. Photons are found to have an effective mass in an external gravitational field and their velocity in a local inertial frame is in general less than $c$. The effective photon mass in the Schwarzschild metric is $m_\gamma = ( 2GM/r^3 )^{1/2}$ and near the horizon it is larger than the Hawking temperature of the blackhole. Our result implies that Hawking radiation of photons would not take place. We also conclude that there is no superluminal photon velocity in higher derivative gravity theories (arising from QED radiative corrections), as has been claimed in literature. We show that these erroneous claims are due to the neglect of the Riemann and Ricci coupling terms which exist in Einstein's gravity.
Mohanty Subhendra
Prasanna A. R.
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