p2

where K (a function of position) is the modified dielectric constant of the vacuum due to the induced
vacuum polarizability changes under consideration. Equation (2.27) defines the transformation ε = Kε 0 .
Table 1 shows the various quantitative effects a polarizable vacuum (in the presence of positive massenergy
distributions) has on the various measurement processes important to general relativity. The
effects demonstrated in the middle and right columns demonstrate the basis of the polarizable vacuum
approach to general relativity. Table 2 shows what effects are manifested when negative mass-energy
distributions induce vacuum polarizability changes that lead to FTL phenomenon. Experimental
observations impose constraints on the model causing key physical constants to remain constant even
with variable polarizability present in the local space. Puthoff (1999a, 2002a, b) has shown that the fine
structure constant is constrained by observational data to remain constant within a variable polarizable
vacuum, and this constraint actually defines the transformation µ = Kµ 0 . The elementary particle charge e
is also taken to be constant in a variable polarizable vacuum because of charge conservation. And ħ
remains a constant by conservation of angular momentum for circularly polarized photons propagating
through the (variable polarizability) vacuum. The remaining constant of nature is the speed of light, and
although the tables showed how this was modified in variable polarizability vacuums, it is interesting to
see how this modification comes about. In a modified (variable polarizability) vacuum the speed of light
is defined, as it is in standard electrodynamics, in terms of the permittivity and permeability by:
c
∗
≡
=
=
( εµ )
−12
( Kε iKµ
)
0 0
2
( K εµ
0 0)
1
=
K
c0
=
K
( εµ )
0 0
−12
−12
−12
(2.28),
where the permittivity/permeability transformations and the free space (un-modified vacuum) definition
for c 0 were inserted. Note that (2.28) can be re-written as c * /c 0 = 1/K, and this is to be compared with
(2.22). Thus we see from (2.28), and by comparison with (2.22), that K plays the role of a variable
refractive index under conditions in which the vacuum polarizability is assumed to change in response to
general relativistic-type influences. One further note of interest is that the permittivity/permeability
transformations also maintains constant the ratio
µ
ε
µ
0
= ,
ε0
which is the impedance of free space. This constant ratio is required to keep electric-to-magnetic energy
ratios constant during adiabatic movement of atoms from one position in space to another of differing
vacuum polarizability (Dicke, 1957, 1961). And this constant ratio is also a necessary condition in the
THεµ formalism for an electromagnetic test particle to fall in a gravitational field with a compositionindependent
acceleration (Lightman and Lee, 1973; Will, 1974, 1989, 1993; Haugan and Will, 1977).
Now we make the “crossover connection” to the standard spacetime metric tensor concept that
characterizes conventional general relativity theory, as originally shown by Puthoff (1999a, 2002a, b). In
flat (un-modified or free) space the standard four-dimensional infinitesimal spacetime interval ds 2 is given
(in Cartesian coordinates with subscript 0) by
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