Velocity of signal in attractive potential and propagation of light in gravitational field

A. D. Dolgov, I. B. Khriplovich

Published 1997-08-11Version 1

The propagation of a massless field in attractive and repulsive potentials is considered. It is shown that though the group velocity in such potentials can be larger than one, the wave front propagates with the speed of light. A larger-than-one group velocity leads only to a strong deformation of the wave packet. The results obtained are applied to the light propagation in a gravitational field. An erroneous assertion concerning the last problem, recently made in the literature, is refuted.