On the Observation of Vacuum Birefringence
High Energy Physics - Phenomenology
2009-11-11 v1 High Energy Physics - Experiment
Abstract
We suggest an experiment to observe vacuum birefringence induced by intense laser fields. A high-intensity laser pulse is focused to ultra-relativistic intensity and polarizes the vacuum which then acts like a birefringent medium. The latter is probed by a linearly polarized x-ray pulse. We calculate the resulting ellipticity signal within strong-field QED assuming Gaussian beams. The laser technology required for detecting the signal will be available within the next three years.
Cite
@article{arxiv.hep-ph/0601076,
title = {On the Observation of Vacuum Birefringence},
author = {T. Heinzl and B. Liesfeld and K. -U. Amthor and H. Schwoerer and R. Sauerbrey and A. Wipf},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-ph/0601076},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
4 pages, 4 figures