Apparent Correction to the Speed of Light in a Gravitational Potential

The effects of physical interactions are usually incorporated into the quantum theory by including the corresponding terms in the Hamiltonian. Here we consider the effects of including the gravitational potential energy of massive particles in the Hamiltonian of quantum electrodynamics. This results in a predicted correction to the speed of light that is proportional to the fine structure constant. The correction to the speed of light obtained in this way depends on the gravitational potential and not the gravitational field, which is not gauge invariant and presumably nonphysical. Nevertheless, the predicted results are in reasonable agreement with experimental observations from Supernova 1987a.