A local effective action for photon–gravity interactions

Abstract

Quantum phenomena such as vacuum polarization in curved spacetime induce interactions between photons and gravity with quite striking consequences, including the violation of the strong equivalence principle and the apparent prediction of ‘superluminal’ photon propagation. These quantum interactions can be encoded in an effective action. In this paper, we extend previous results on the effective action for QED in curved spacetime due to Barvinsky, Vilkovisky and others, and present a new, local effective action valid to all orders in a derivative expansion, as required for a full analysis of the quantum theory of high-frequency photon propagation in gravitational fields.