1112.3414 (J. Strohaber)

Frame dragging with optical vortices    [PDF]

J. Strohaber

General Relativistic calculations in the linear regime have been made for electromagnetic beams of radiation known as optical vortices. These exotic beams of light carry a physical quantity known as optical orbital angular momentum (OAM). It is found that when a massive spinning neutral particle is placed along the optical axis, a phenomenon known as inertial frame dragging occurs. Our results are compared with those found previously for a ring laser and an order of magnitude estimate of the laser intensity needed for a precession frequency of 1 Hz is given for these "steady" beams of light.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1112.3414