Related papers: Vacuum refractive indices and helicity flip in str…
By combining an adiabatic approach based on a `locally monochromatic' approximation with a local Hilbert transform, it is demonstrated how vacuum birefringence in the strong field regime can be calculated using a rate approach suitable for…
Photons impinging on strong electromagnetic fields can change both momentum and helicity state, due to quantum vacuum polarisation. We investigate these effects in the collision of photons with impulsive PP-waves, which describe e.g. the…
We consider signals of photon-photon scattering in laser-based, low energy experiments. In particular, we consider the ellipticity induced on a probe beam by a strong background field, and compare it with a recent worldline expression for…
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…
For scattering amplitudes in strong background fields, it is -- at least in principle -- possible to perturbatively expand the background to obtain higher-point vacuum amplitudes. In the case of self-dual plane wave backgrounds we consider…
Birefringence is one of the fascinating properties of the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in strong electromagnetic fields. The scattering of linearly polarized incident probe photons into a perpendicularly polarized mode provides a…
Quantum electrodynamics predicts the vacuum to behave as a non-linear medium, including effects such as birefringence. However, for experimentally available field strengths, this vacuum polarizability is extremely small and thus very hard…
Photons propagating in strong magnetic fields are subject to a phenomenon called the "vacuum birefringence" where refractive indices of two physical modes both deviate from unity and are different from each other. We compute the vacuum…
Vacuum polarization mediated by quark loops is susceptible to external electromagnetic fields as well as to the QCD vacuum structure. Employing the stochastic vacuum model, we calculate the modification of the one-loop Euler-Heisenberg…
In the present study, we consider the effects of vacuum birefringence and dichroism in strong electromagnetic fields. According to quantum electrodynamics, the vacuum state exhibits different refractive properties depending on the probe…
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…
We use an analytic form for the Heisenberg-Euler Lagrangian to calculate the birefringent and dichroic properties of the vacuum for arbitrarily strong wrenchless fields. PACS : 12.20.Ds, 42.25.Lc 97.60.Jd, 98.70.Rz
The QED vacuum polarization in external monochromatic plane-wave electromagnetic fields is calculated with spatial and temporal variations of the external fields being taken into account. We develop a perturbation theory to calculate the…
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 focus of these lectures is on the quantum vacuum subjected to classical electromagnetic fields. To this end we explicitly derive the renowned Heisenberg-Euler effective action in constant electromagnetic fields in a rather pedagogical…
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…
Vacuum polarisation in QED in a background gravitational field induces interactions which effectively violate the strong equivalence principle and affect the propagation of light. In the low frequency limit, Drummond and Hathrell have shown…
We derive a simple expression for the photon helicity and polarisation-flip probabilities in arbitrary background fields, in the low energy regime. Taking the background to model a focused laser beam, we study the impact of pulse shape and…
Quantum electrodynamics in strong background fields provides an interesting class of problems for classical and quantum simulation. In this paper we formulate simulations of polarization (helicity) flip for a photon colliding with a…
We apply worldline methods to the study of vacuum polarisation effects in plane wave backgrounds, in both scalar and spinor QED. We calculate helicity-flip probabilities to one loop order and treated exactly in the background field, and…