March 20th, 2008
Left Handed Materials and Redshift
In my Spring 2007 Electrodynamics II class at the University of Utah, Dr. Efros mentioned odd possibilities with respect to Left-Handed Materials (LHMs) in our universe. LHMs are a special kind of material (lovingly called a meta-material) which have electromagnetic properties contrary to what we’re used to experiencing in our every-day world.
Dr. Efros hypothesized about how these LHMs would affect the matter distribution in the Universe. He showed how divergent electromagnetic waves (including light) could be re-focused while travelling through the LHM, which would skew the matter distribution seen in the Universe (things would appear closer than they actually are). He also suggested that he couldn’t think of a way in which we would know that this is happening.
I believe that we could determine if this is happening, in principle, using standard candles as a yardstick to compare with galactic redshift. Although light from celestial objects would appear refocused, they would still be subject to redshift effects. By comparing the two, we could in principle determine if we’re peering through LHMs.
