Sagnac effect in ring interferometers on “slow” waves

We consider the Sagnac effect in ring interferometers on magnetostatic and surface acoustic waves. It is shown that the Sagnac effect for waves of arbitrary type (including both magnetostatic and surface acoustic waves) propagating in an arbitrary medium cannot be calculated using Galilean transformations but is explained within the framework of the special relativity and is related to the difference between the phase velocities rather than group velocities of counter-propagating waves in the rotating reference frame. We also show that the phase difference of counterpropagating waves due to the Sagnac effect depends on neither the phase velocity of the wave in a medium at rest nor the dispersion of the medium; it depends only on the wave frequency and the angular velocity of interferometer rotation. The minimum angular velocity that can be measured in the ring interferometers using magnetostatic and surface acoustic waves is estimated.[PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]