English

Nonlinear Electrodynamics without Birefringence

High Energy Physics - Theory 2023-02-01 v3

Abstract

All solutions of the no-birefringence conditions for nonlinear electrodynamics are found. In addition to the known Born-Infeld and Plebanski cases, we find a ``reverse Born-Infeld'' case, which has a limit to Plebanski, and an ``extreme-Born-Infeld'' case, which arises as a Lagrangian constraint. Only Born-Infeld has a weak-field limit, and only Born-Infeld and extreme-Born Infeld avoid superluminal propagation in constant electromagnetic backgrounds, but all cases have a conformal strong-field limit that coincides with the strong-field limit of Born-Infeld found by Bialynicki-Birula.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2211.10689,
  title  = {Nonlinear Electrodynamics without Birefringence},
  author = {Jorge G. Russo and Paul K. Townsend},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2211.10689},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

25 pages. Comments and references added

R2 v1 2026-06-28T06:16:23.722Z