IOP PUBLISHING CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM GRAVITY Class. Quantum Grav. 26 (2009) 035024 (13pp) doi:10.1088/0264-9381/26/3/035024 Propagation of light in area metric backgrounds

The propagation of light in area metric spacetimes, which naturally emerge as refined backgrounds in quantum electrodynamics and quantum gravity, is studied from first principles. In the geometric-optical limit, light rays are found to follow geodesics in a Finslerian geometry, with the Finsler norm being determined by the area metric tensor. Based on this result, and an understanding of the nonlinear relation between ray vectors and wave covectors in such refined backgrounds, we study light deflection in spherically symmetric situations and obtain experimental bounds on the non-metricity of spacetime in the solar system. PACS numbers: 02.40.Hw, 04.50.Kd, 04.60.Bc 1