Effect of chirality on the Doppler shift and aberration of light waves

Abstract

The Doppler shift and aberration effects are examined for the case of plane electromagnetic wave propagation in optically active or chiral media. These phenomena are found to separate a single monochromatic plane wave into two waves, as observed in a coordinate system in motion with respect to the source. It is shown that the Doppler effect is manifested as two shifted frequencies, one for each of the chiral eigenmodes, while the aberration results in two apparent directions of propagation, one for each eigenmode. Therefore, when motion is involved (either a moving source or a moving observer), a monochromatic single plane wave in one frame may be observed as two plane waves with unequal frequencies and differing directions of propagation in the other. The resulting double frequency shift is plotted as a function of relative velocity.