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When exposed to intense electromagnetic fields, the quantum vacuum is expected to exhibit properties of a polarisable medium akin to a weakly nonlinear dielectric material. Various schemes have been proposed to measure such vacuum…
Recently, the PVLAS collaboration has reported evidence for an anomalously large rotation of the polarization of light generated in vacuum in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. This may be explained through the production of a new…
We propose a novel technique that promises hope of being the first to directly detect a polarization in the quantum electrodynamic (QED) vacuum. The technique is based upon the use of ultra-short pulses of light circulating in low…
The PVLAS experiment operates an ellipsometer which embraces a superconducting dipole magnet and can measure ellipticity and rotation induced by the magnetic field onto linearly polarized light. The sensitivity of the instrument is about…
Recently, the PVLAS collaboration has reported evidence for an anomalous rotation of the polarization of light in vacuum in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. This may be explained through the production of a new light spin-zero…
In vacuum high-intensity lasers can cause photon-photon interaction via the process of virtual vacuum polarization which may be measured by the phase velocity shift of photons across intense fields. In the optical frequency domain, the…
A nonlinear interaction between photons is observed in a process that involves charge sources. To observe this process in a vacuum, there are a growing number of theoretical and experimental studies. This process may contain exotic…
Oscillations of photons into axion-like particles in a high-intensity laser field are investigated. Nonlinear QED effects are considered through the low energy behavior of the vacuum polarization tensor, which is derived from the…
Vacuum polarization, an effect predicted nearly 70 years ago, is still yet to be directly detected despite significant experimental effort. Previous attempts have made use of large liquid-helium cooled electromagnets which inadvertently…
Hypothetical oscillations of probe photons into axion-like particles might be revealed by exploiting the strong fields of high-intensity laser pulses. Considering an arbitrary plane-wave background, we determine the polarization tensor…
The measurement of vacuum polarisation effects, in particular vacuum birefringence, using combined optical and x-ray laser pulses is now actively pursued. Here we briefly examine the feasibility of two alternative setups. The first utilises…
We sketch the proposal for a "PVLAS-Phase II" experiment. The main physics goal is to achieve the first direct observation of non-linear effects in electromagnetism predicted by QED and the measurement of the photon-photon scattering cross…
The quantum electrodynamical vacuum polarization effects arising in the collision of a high-energy proton beam and a strong, linearly polarized laser field are investigated. The probability that laser photons merge into one photon by…
We consider birefringent (i.e., polarization changing) scattering of x-ray photons at the superposition of two optical laser beams of ultra-high intensity and study the resonant contributions of axions or axion-like particles, which could…
We introduce a laser heterodyne polarimeter designed for the precision measurement of sub $\mu\mathrm{rad}$ differential phase shifts due to birefringence. The polarimeter will be used in an initial testbed for a potential future vacuum…
A long-standing prediction of quantum electrodynamics, yet to be experimentally observed, is the interaction between real photons in vacuum. As a consequence of this interaction, the vacuum is expected to become birefringent and dichroic if…
Recently the PVLAS collaboration reported the observation of a rotation of linearly polarized laser light induced by a transverse magnetic field - a signal being unexpected within standard QED. Two mechanisms have been proposed to explain…
The influence of the strong laser-driven vacuum on a propagating electromagnetic probe wave has been studied in detail. We investigate two scenarios comprising a focused probe laser beam passing through a region of vacuum polarised by an…
We argue that measurements of X-ray polarization using the recently launched Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer will answer many open questions about magnetars in particular the physical state of their surfaces, whether vacuum birefringence…
The PVLAS collaboration has observed rotation of the plane of polarization of light passing through a magnetic field in vacuum and has proposed that the effect is due to interaction of photons with very light spin-zero bosons. This would…