'Space-time cloak' could conceal events
Baku, November 26 (AZERTAC). New materials with the ability to manipulate the speed of light could enable the creation of a "space-time cloak" capable of masking events or even creating an illusion of "Star Trek"-style transportation, according to scientists in London.
The cloak, while currently only existing in mathematical theory, takes advantage of the potential properties of "metamaterials"- artificial materials designed and manipulated at a molecular level to interact with and control electromagnetic waves.
Scientists have previously demonstrated that one possible use of metamaterials could be to render objects invisible by bending light around them. But Professor Martin McCall of Imperial College London says he has now extended the concept of invisibility to a cloak also capable of hiding events both in time and space.
"In some senses our work is mathematically quite closely related to the idea of invisibility cloaking," McCall told CNN. "It's just that we're doing it in space and time instead of just in space. It's added a new dimension to cloaking, quite literally."
In a paper published in the Journal of Optics, McCall said metamaterials made it theoretically possible to manipulate light rays as they enter a material so that some parts speed up and others slow down. This could create "blind spots" in time, masking an event. While the accelerated light arrives at a space before an event has happened, the rest of the light doesn't reach it until after the event.
"If you had someone moving along the corridor, it would appear to a distant observer as if they had relocated instantaneously, creating the illusion of a Star Trek transporter," says McCall. "So, theoretically, this person might be able to do something and you wouldn`t notice."
Alberto Favaro, who worked on the project, compared the process to moving a pedestrian across a highway full of traffic by speeding up those cars already at or beyond the crossing point while slowing down the approaching vehicles.
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