>>13218092You could literally just use a phased array to make a pulse appear to move faster than light.
Consider two emitters separated by a distance, d, emitting a pulse at the same time.
Their pulses will constructively interfere along their symmetry plane creating a combined pulse.
For simplicity let the emitters be located at (+/-d/2 , 0)
The pulse from (d/2,0) can be modeled as the circle (x-d/2)^2 + y^2 = (ct)^2.
The combined pulse is at x=0.
Solving for the location on the y axis of this pulse gives y = sqrt((ct)^2 -(d/2)^2)
Taking the time derivative will give the apparent speed of this pulse: tc^2/sqrt((ct)^2 -(d/2)^2).
The speed is infinite right when the two pulses touch.
It decays to c as t goes to infinity.
Their setup is carefully calibrated/timed to speed up a pulse which they know when will be emitted.
This cannot take in a pulse of light with unknown arrival time and speed it up (so no ftl communication).
At best this can be used to recombine laser pulses that aren't completely synchronized.
It might be used to achieve crazy energy densities if they could somehow chop a laser pulse in half (front and back), send the pieces different paths, speed up the back piece, recombine, repeat.
