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PUBLICATIONS

Abraham's Force on a Highly Dispersive Medium

Published

Author(s)

Paul D. Lett, L Wang

Abstract

We consider the radiation force on highly dispersive media. In doing so we reconsider an experiment proposed to measure the Abraham force term in the stress-energy tensor at optical frequencies by measuring the displacement of a transparent dielectric caused by a light pulse passing through it. We demonstrate that, using a cold atomic vapor with a large normal dispersion as the sample medium, such an experiment should now be feasible. We also show that this radiation force can be measured for a light pulse in a highly anomalously dispersive medium, where the group velocity exceeds c. This leads to the non-intuitive result that the sample recoil changes direction.
Citation
Laser Spectroscopy
Publisher Info
World Scientific Publishing Company, Hackensack, NJ
Pub Type
Books

Download Paper

DOI Link

Keywords

Abraham's force, anomalous dispersion, Bose-Einstein condensation, electromagnetic theory, laser cooling, slow light, spectroscopy
Physics

Citation

Lett, P. and Wang, L. (2004), Abraham's Force on a Highly Dispersive Medium, World Scientific Publishing Company, Hackensack, NJ, [online], https://doi.org/10.1142/9789812703002_0054 (Accessed October 7, 2025)

Issues

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Created February 2, 2004, Updated November 10, 2018
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