Faster than light in a birefringent crystal

Abstract

We examine the effect of superluminal signal propagation through a birefringent crystal, where the effect is not due to absorption or reflection, but to the filtration of a special polarization component. We first examine the effect by a stationary phase analysis, with results consistent with those of an earlier analysis of the system. We supplement this analysis by considering the transit of a gaussian wave and find bounds for the validity of the stationary phase result. The propagation of the gaussian wave is illustrated by figures.