English

Nonlinear Quantum Electrodynamics in Dirac materials

Other Condensed Matter 2022-02-15 v2 Quantum Physics

Abstract

Classical electromagnetism is linear. However, fields can polarize the vacuum Dirac sea, causing quantum nonlinear electromagnetic phenomena, e.g., scattering and splitting of photons, that occur only in very strong fields found in neutron stars or heavy ion colliders.We show that strong nonlinearity arises in Dirac materials at much lower fields 1T\sim 1\:\text{T}, allowing us to explore the nonperturbative, extremely high field limit of quantum electrodynamics in solids. We explain recent experiments in a unified framework and predict a new class of nonlinear magneto-electric effects, including a magnetic enhancement of dielectric constant of insulators and a strong electric modulation of magnetization. We propose experiments and discuss the applications in novel materials.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.09714,
  title  = {Nonlinear Quantum Electrodynamics in Dirac materials},
  author = {Aydin C. Keser and Yuli Lyanda-Geller and Oleg P. Sushkov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.09714},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

6+12 pages, 2+1 figures, 1 Supplement, prepared by using revtex 4.1

R2 v1 2026-06-23T22:27:58.415Z