Understanding the gravitational and cosmological redshifts as Doppler shifts by gravitational phase factors

Abstract

From the viewpoint of gauge gravitational theories, the path dependent gravitational phase factors define the Lorentz transformations between the local inertial coordinate systems of different positions. With this point we show that the spectral shifts in the curved spacetime, such as the gravitational and cosmological redshifts, can be understood as Doppler shifts. All these shifts are interpreted in a unified way as being originated from the relative motion of the free falling observers instantaneously static with the wave source and the receiver respectively. The gravitational phase factor of quantum systems in the curved spacetime is also discussed.