https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-10620-6
Regular Article - Theoretical Physics
A quest for the origin of the Sagnac effect
1
High Energy and Cosmic Ray Research Center, University of North Bengal, 734013, Siliguri, India
2
Department of Physics, Harish-Chandra Research Institute, Chhatnag Road, Jhunsi, 211019, Allahabad (Prayagraj), Uttar Pradesh, India
3
Department of Physics, Visva-Bharati University, 731235, Santiniketan, West Bengal, India
Received:
1
July
2022
Accepted:
15
July
2022
Published online:
27
July
2022
In the literature, there is no consensus on the origin of the relativistic Sagnac effect, particularly from the standpoint of the rotating observer. The experiments of Wang et al. (Phys Lett A 312(1–2):7, 2003; Phys Rev Lett 93(14):143901, 2004) has, however, questioned the pivotal role of rotation of the platform in Sagnac effect. Recently, the relative motion between the reflectors which force light to propagate along a closed path and the observer has been ascribed as the cause of the Sagnac effect. Here, we propose a thought experiment on linear Sagnac effect and explore another one proposed earlier to demonstrate that the origin of the Sagnac effect is neither the rotation of frame affecting clock synchronization nor the relative motion between the source and the observer; Sagnac effect originates purely due to asymmetric position of the observer with respect to the light paths. Such a conclusion is validated by analysis of a gedanken Sagnac kind experiment involving rotation.
The original online version of this article was revised: In both Eq.(2) and Eq.(3), the numerator should read “4L-q” instead of “4Lv-qc”
An erratum to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjc/s10052-022-10748-5.
Copyright comment 2022
© The Author(s) 2022. 2022
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Funded by SCOAP3. SCOAP3 supports the goals of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development.
