Electromagnetic Waves in a Rotating Frame of Reference

We discuss the electromagnetic measurements of rotating observers and study the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a uniformly rotating frame of reference. The phenomenon of helicity-rotation coupling is elucidated and some of the observational consequences of the coupling of the spin of a particle with the rotation of a gravitational source are briefly examined.Comment: LaTeX file, 2 PS figures, 18 pages, a few minor corrections, accepted for publication in Annalen der Physik, in pres

Ring-Pattern Dynamics in Smectic-C* and Smectic-C_A* Freely Suspended Liquid Crystal Films

Ring patterns of concentric 2pi-solitons in molecular orientation, form in freely suspended chiral smectic-C films in response to an in-plane rotating electric field. We present measurements of the zero-field relaxation of ring patterns and of the driven dynamics of ring formation under conditions of synchronous winding, and a simple model which enables their quantitative description in low polarization DOBAMBC. In smectic C_A* TFMHPOBC we observe an odd-even layer number effect, with odd number layer films exhibiting order of magnitude slower relaxation rates than even layer films. We show that this rate difference is due to much larger spontaneous polarization in odd number layer films.Comment: 4 RevTeX pgs, 4 eps figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. Let