Fermat's principle and the effect of jerk on light motion near the Sun

Abstract

In classical mechanics, in the case of gravitational and electromagnetic interactions, the force on a particle is usually proportional to its acceleration: The force acts locally on the particle. However, there are situations possible-if the particle moves through a suitable medium, for example, in which the force depends also on the first-time derivative of its acceleration, the jerk, and on its second-time derivative, the snap, and possibly also on higher-time derivatives. Such forces are called nonlocal, and this work investigates such nonlocal forces, mainly those depending on the jerk. In particular, we implement jerk and acceleration in geodesics by means of the nonlocal-in-time kinetic energy approach to spacetime physics. We describe a framework that can be used to estimate the quantum nonlocal time parameter by studying the deflection of light around the Sun. Comparing our results with long baseline interferometry (VLBI) observations, we concluded that the nonlocal time parameter τ < 1.415 × 10-10 s.