https://doi.org/10.1140/epjcd/s2005-01-001-9
Original Article / Theoretical Physics
Negative phase velocity of electromagnetic waves and the cosmological constant
1
University of Edinburgh, School of Mathematics, EH9 3JZ, Edinburgh, UK
2
Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802-6812, USA
* e-mail: T.Mackay@ed.ac.uk
Examining the propagation of electromagnetic plane waves with the wavevector directed in opposition to the time-averaged Poynting vector in cosmological spacetime with piecewise uniform metric, we show that such negative-phase-velocity (NPV) propagation is possible in certain de Sitter spacetimes but not in anti-de Sitter spacetimes. This difference suggests the possibility of an optical/electromagnetic experiment to discern the cosmological constant of a four-dimensional universe stemming from a five-dimensional brane universe.
© Springer-Verlag, 2005
