Electromagnetic field theory in superluminal spacetime

Abstract

Recently, a number of experimental observations on the superluminal group velocities of pulses propagating in dispersive media have led to reconsidering electromagnetism theory in an unconventional framework. To consider faster-than-light phenomena, it is not necessary to replace the current relativistic theory, but it is sufficient to extend it to superluminal motions in a way that preserves the principle of causality. In the present paper, a new approach to study superluminal motions is proposed, which avoids introducing unphysical complex quantities and allows for the formulation of equations that are covariant according to a hyperbolic metric. In the framework of this formalism, Maxwell equations and the single-photon wave equation are obtained through superluminal transformations of ordinary equations. It is shown that the covariant and contravariant components of the superluminal electromagnetic field determine its magnitude and direction, respectively. Furthermore, the solutions of the transformed Maxwell equations are X-shaped ways propagating in the superluminal spacetime region that is delimited by the infinite light cone and the two-sheeted hyperboloid perpendicular to it. Instead, in quantum mechanics, the covariant and contravariant components of the electromagnetic field are proportional to the right- and left-handed helicities of the single photon, respectively.