Paper detail

Invisibility cloaks in relativistic motion

We consider an ideal invisibility cloak which is illuminated by monochromatic light and which moves in vacuum at constant relativistic velocity with respect to the common inertial frame of light source and observer. We show that, in general, the moving cloak becomes detectable by image distortions and by generating a broad frequency spectrum of the scattered light. However, for many special combinations of incident light frequency, wave vector of light, and cloak velocity, ideal cloaking remains possible. It becomes non-reciprocal though. This means that light rays emitted by the light source arrive at the observer as though they have travelled through vacuum, but they take completely different paths after being retro-reflected at the observer position.