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42 - Deflection of Light by the Sun and Comparison with General Relativity

from Part III - Other Spins or Statistics; General Relativity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 March 2019

Horaƫiu Năstase
Affiliation:
Universidade Estadual Paulista, São Paulo
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Summary

We calculate “deflection of light by the Sun." First, we define a first-order action for a massless particle moving in a gravitational field, and then we calculate the motion of light on a geodesic as motion of light in a medium with a small, position-dependent index of refraction, giving the light deviation for small angles. Then we redo the calculation from the Hamilton–Jacobi formalism by first defining the Hamilton–Jacobi equation for light motion and then solving it. This gives the nonperturbative light deviation that matches the previous calculation at small angles. We end by comparison with the deflection of light by the Sun in special relativity, which is different by a factor of 2.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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