Related papers: Vacuum Birefringence as a Vacuum Emission Process
A model for the localized quantum vacuum is proposed in which the zero-point energy of the quantum electromagnetic field originates in energy- and momentum-conserving transitions of material systems from their ground state to an unstable…
The propagation of electromagnetic waves is investigated in the context of the isotropic and nonlinear dielectric media at rest in the eikonal limit of the geometrical optics. Taking into account the functional dependence…
The spontaneous production of electron-positron pairs from the vacuum--in a field configuration composed of a high-frequency electric mode of weak intensity and a strong constant electric field--is investigated. Asymptotic expressions for…
We study the fermionic vacuum energy of vacua with and without being applied an external magnetic field. The energetic difference of two vacua leads to the vacuum decaying and the vacuum-energy releasing. In the context of quantum field…
In the presence of strong magnetic fields, the vacuum becomes a birefringent medium. We show that this QED effect decouples the polarization modes of photons leaving the NS surface. Both the total intensity and the intensity in each of the…
The effective Lagrangian of electromagnetic fields at the cubic order in field strength has been considered. This generalized Lagrangian is motivated by electrodynamics on non-commutative spaces. We find the canonical and symmetrical…
Regarding axion electrodynamics in the background flat FRW universe, we show that cosmological birefringence arises from an adiabatic noncyclic geometric phase that appears in the quantum state of photons because of their interaction with…
We present and study a possible mechanism of extracting energies from the vacuum by external classical fields. Taking a constant magnetic field as an example, we discuss why and how the vacuum energy can be released in the context of…
We consider the electric and magnetic energy densities (or equivalently field fluctuations) in the space around a point-like field source in its ground state, after having subtracted the spatially uniform zero-point energy terms, and…
We study photon propagation in a strong magnetic field $B\sim B_{\rm{cr}}$, where $B_{\rm cr}= \frac{m^2}{e} \simeq 4.4 \times 10^{13}$ Gauss is the Schwinger critical field. We show that the expected value of the Hamiltonian of a quantized…
The process of electron-positron pair production is investigated within the phase-space Wigner formalism. The similarities between atomic ionization and pair production for homogeneous, but time-dependent linearly polarized electric fields…
The vacuum of quantum electrodynamics is unstable against the formation of many-body states in the presence of an external electric field, manifesting itself as the creation of electron-positron pairs (Schwinger effect). This effect has…
An interference experiment in a magnetic field free region with non vanishing vector potential created by two perpendicularly intersecting planes carrying uniform currents is discussed. The relation of this configuration to the…
A new model of nonlinear electrodynamics with three parameters is suggested and investigated. It is shown that if the external constant magnetic field presents the phenomenon of vacuum birefringence takes place. The indexes of refraction…
We discuss the experimental techniques used to date for measuring the changes in polarization state of a laser produced by a strong transverse magnetic field acting in a vacuum. We point out the likely artifacts that can arise in such…
High magnetic fields can increase the occurrence of vacuum arcing, suggesting that both electric and magnetic fields can play a role in the vacuum arcing process. The mechanism of vacuum arcing in high magnetic fields is believed to involve…
Quantum vacuum experiments are becoming a flexible tool for investigating fundamental physics. They are particularly powerful for searching for new light but weakly interacting degrees of freedom and are thus complementary to…
The quantum vacuum is unstable under the influence of an external electric field and decays into pairs of charged particles, a process which is known as the Schwinger pair production. We propose and demonstrate that this electric field can…
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…
When photons propagate in vacuum they may fluctuate into matter pairs thus allowing the vacuum to be polarised. This linear effect leads to charge screening and renormalisation. When exposed to an intense background field a nonlinear effect…