Magneto-optic and electro-optic effects in electromagnetic and gravitational fields

摘要

The magneto-optic effects and electro-optic effects are the essential opticeffects, although their theoretical explanations are not unified in theclassical electromagnetic theory. Describing with the algebra of octonions, theelectromagnetic theory can derive the magneto-optic effects and electro-opticeffects from the same one force definition in the paper. As well as themagneto-optic effect is deduced from the known force term, the electro-opticeffect is from the new force term in the octonion space. This descriptionmethod is different to that in the quantum theory as well as the indexellipsoid approach for the electro-optic effect. One more significant inferenceis that the gravitational field has an impact on the rotation of linearlypolarized light, and then results in the similar birefringence for thetransmitted light in the cosmic matter.