Related papers: A note on polarized light from Magnetars
Isolated Neutron Stars are some of the most exciting stellar objects known to astronomers: they have the most extreme magnetic fields, with values up to $10^{15}$ G, and, with the exception of stellar-mass black holes, they are the most…
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…
A strong electromagnetic field polarizes the vacuum and in the presence of an electric field creates pairs of a charged particle and its anti-particle. Magnetars, highly magnetized neutron stars with magnetic field comparable to or greater…
We study the propagation of polarization light through the magnetosphere of neutron stars. At intermediate frequencies (the optical through the infrared), both the birefringence induced by the plasma and by quantumelectrodynamics influence…
Recent ultra-intense lasers of subcritical fields and proposed observations of the x-rays polarization from highly magnetized neutron stars of supercritical fields have attracted attention to vacuum birefringence, a unique feature of…
The recent detection of a large polarization degree in the optical emission of an isolated neutron star led to the suggestion that this has been the first evidence of vacuum polarization in a strong magnetic field, an effect predicted by…
In the presence of strong magnetic fields, the vacuum becomes a birefringent medium. We show that this QED effect couples the direction of the polarization of photons leaving the NS surface, to the direction of the magnetic field along the…
Extremely strong magnetic fields change the vacuum index of refraction. This induces a lensing effect that is not unlike the lensing phenomenon in strong gravitational fields. The main difference between the two is the polarization…
The thermal emission of strongly magnetized neutron-star atmospheres is thought to be highly polarized. However, because of the different orientations of the magnetic field over the surface of the neutron star (NS), it is commonly assumed…
The quantum electrodynamics (QED) theory predicts that the quantum vacuum becomes birefringent in the presence of ultra-strong magnetic fields -- a fundamental effect yet to be directly observed. Magnetars, isolated neutron stars with…
The birefringence phenomenon in the vacuum with a constant magnetic background of arbitrary strength is considered within the framework of the effective action approach. A new feature of the birefringence in a magnetized vacuum is that the…
Radiative corrections of quantum electrodynamics cause a vacuum threaded by magnetic field to be birefringent. This means that radiation of different polarizations travels at different speeds. Even in the strong magnetic fields of…
The "Magnificent Seven" (M7) are a group of radio-quiet Isolated Neutron Stars (INSs) discovered in the soft X-rays through their purely thermal surface emission. Owing to the large inferred magnetic fields ($B\approx 10^{13}$ G), radiation…
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 non-linear electrodynamics influence of pulsar magnetic field on the electromagnetic pulse polarization is discussed from the point of observation interpretation. The calculations of pulsar magnetic field impact on electromagnetic pulse…
In the atmospheric plasma of a strongly magnetized neutron star, vacuum polarization can induce a Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein like resonance across which a X-ray photon may (depending on its energy) convert from one mode into the other,…
Intense magnetic fields in the atmospheres of neutron stars render non-trivial angular dependence of intensity and polarization of soft X-ray emission originating from their surfaces. By tracking the complex electric field vector for each…
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…
We present an experimental systematics study of the polarimetric method for measuring the vacuum magnetic birefringence based on a pair of rotating half-wave plates. The presence of a systematic effect at the same frequency as the sought…
New-generation X-ray polarimeters currently under development promise to open a new window in the study of high-energy astrophysical sources. Among them, neutron stars appear particularly suited for polarization measurements. Radiation from…