Electrodynamics of moving media inducing positive and negative refraction

Negative refraction is a phenomenon that has been recently reported with left-handed media (either isotropic or not), photonic crystals, and rotated uniaxial media. In this Brief Report, we identify another origin of negative refraction, due to the motion of the transmitted medium parallel to the interface at which refraction occurs. Previous works in this domain have concentrated on media velocities that are above the {C} {C}{}erenkov limit, while we show here that negative refraction is in fact achievable at any velocities of the transmitted medium. A possible experimental implementation is proposed to verify this effect. Next, we consider an isotropic frequency-dispersive medium for which the index of refraction can take negative values, and we study the wave refraction phenomenon as a function of frequency and medium velocity. It is found that the motion of the medium induces a rotation of refraction, which can either enhance or attenuate the natural negative refraction of the medium.