We investigate the phenomenon of “faster than light” photons in a family of dilaton black hole spacetimes. For radially directed photons, we find that their light-cone condition is modified even though the spacetimes are spherically symmetric. They also satisfy the “horizon theorem” and the “polarization sum rule” of Shore. For orbital photons, the dilatonic effect on the modification of the light-cone condition can become more dominant than the electromagnetic and the gravitational ones as the orbit gets closer to the event horizon in the extremal or near-extremal cases.

• Received 10 April 1997

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.56.6416