Do sound waves and light rays interact?

[Niki4444]

Homework Statement

see topic title

Homework Equations

I think that sound waves are vibrations of particles in a medium. The vibrations continue until the energy is gone. Sound seems to need a medium to travel through.

Light can travel in a vacuum. your eye sees it from a source or from an object (reflection, refraction)...

The Attempt at a Solution

see my thoughts above. My guess is that they don't interact, but I'm not sure why exactly I think this.

 

[mgb_phys]

They do interact in that light interacts with the medium it is traveling through and sound waves can change that medium.
So you could change the density of a gas with sound waves and the change in density would give a (small) chnage in refractive index.

There are acousto-optical modulators where sound waves in specialy chosen materials are used to change the direction of a light beam by changing the optical properties of the material.