Polarization-Dependent Photon Propagation, Quasinormal Modes, and Gravitational Lensing in Higher-Curvature Effective Theories
Abstract
We investigate the impact of higher-curvature corrections on photon propagation within an effective field theory framework and their observational consequences in strong gravitational fields. We consider polarization-dependent modifications to photon trajectories in static and spherically symmetric spacetimes, focusing on Schwarzschild and Reissner--Nordström black hole backgrounds. Using the geometrical optics approximation, we derive the effective metrics governing photon propagation and study the resulting polarization-dependent shifts of the photon sphere. We compute the corresponding quasinormal modes in the eikonal limit and analyze their polarization dependence. We further investigate gravitational lensing, focusing on polarization-dependent corrections to the deflection angle in both weak- and strong-field regimes. In the strong-deflection regime, we find that even perturbatively small EFT corrections modify the coefficient of the logarithmically divergent part of the deflection angle, resulting in a potentially observable difference from the uncorrected case. This suggests that strong gravitational lensing may provide a sensitive probe of small higher-curvature corrections. While extracting EFT information directly from QNM frequencies is more subtle, QNMs may provide complementary information to gravitational lensing in future studies. Our results establish a framework for probing higher-curvature effects through polarization-dependent strong-field observables.
Related
- Nonoscillatory gravitational quasinormal modes of Reissner–Nordström–de Sitter spacetime
- Axial gravitational quasinormal modes of magnetically charged black holes
- Grey-body factor from correspondence with quasinormal mode for gravitational perturbation of higher-dimensional Reissner-Nordström black hole
- Quasinormal-mode stability bounds in gravitational EFT: resolvability, predictivity, and positivity
- Gravitational wave propagation through viscous matter
BibTeX
@misc{kanai2026polarizationdependent,
title = {{Polarization-Dependent Photon Propagation, Quasinormal Modes, and Gravitational Lensing in Higher-Curvature Effective Theories}},
author = {Takamasa Kanai},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2606.19773},
eprint = {2606.19773},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.19773},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Polarization-Dependent Photon Propagation, Quasinormal Modes, and Gravitational Lensing in Higher-Curvature Effective Theories
AU - Takamasa Kanai
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/20
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2606.19773
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2606.19773
AB - We investigate the impact of higher-curvature corrections on photon propagation within an effective field theory framework and their observational consequences in strong gravitational fields. We consider polarization-dependent modifications to photon trajectories in static and spherically symmetric spacetimes, focusing on Schwarzschild and Reissner--Nordström black hole backgrounds. Using the geometrical optics approximation, we derive the effective metrics governing photon propagation and study the resulting polarization-dependent shifts of the photon sphere. We compute the corresponding quasinormal modes in the eikonal limit and analyze their polarization dependence. We further investigate gravitational lensing, focusing on polarization-dependent corrections to the deflection angle in both weak- and strong-field regimes. In the strong-deflection regime, we find that even perturbatively small EFT corrections modify the coefficient of the logarithmically divergent part of the deflection angle, resulting in a potentially observable difference from the uncorrected case. This suggests that strong gravitational lensing may provide a sensitive probe of small higher-curvature corrections. While extracting EFT information directly from QNM frequencies is more subtle, QNMs may provide complementary information to gravitational lensing in future studies. Our results establish a framework for probing higher-curvature effects through polarization-dependent strong-field observables.
ER -