Related papers: A note on polarized light from Magnetars
It is predicted within the Standard Model of elementary particles that asymmetric neutrino environments cause rotation of linear polarization of electromagnetic wave -- the birefringence. We demonstrate that this effect is strongly enhanced…
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…
Direct measurements of magnetic fields in low-mass stars of spectral class M have become available during the last years. This contribution summarizes the data available on direct magnetic measurements in M dwarfs from Zeeman analysis in…
The changes in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum seen as an increase of temperature due to a strong magnetic field are determined and their influence on the polarization of the radiation is exhibited. The effect is due to the…
Birefringence phenomena stemming from vacuum polarization are revisited in the framework of coherent scattering. Based on photon-photon scattering, our analysis brings out the direct connection between this process and vacuum birefringence.…
We report on the status of our spectropolarimetric observations of massive stars. During the last years, we have discovered magnetic fields in many objects of the upper main sequence, including Be stars, beta Cephei and Slowly Pulsating B…
The linear polarization that is observed, together with likely changes in the orientation of the magnetic field along the line of sight and hence of the optical axes of the medium, can lead to the circular polarization that is observed in…
In the context of the MiMeS survey of magnetism in massive stars, 85 classical Be stars were observed in circular polarization with the aim of detecting magnetic fields at their surfaces. No direct evidence of such fields is found, in…
We investigate theoretically the effects of vacuum-induced coherence (VIC) on magneto-optical rotation (MOR). We carry out a model study to show that VIC in the presence of a control laser and a magnetic field can lead to large enhancement…
We study the effect of magnetic field on the bulk viscosity of nuclear matter in neutron stars. We employ the framework of relativistic mean field theory to observe the dense nuclear matter in neutron stars. The effects are first studied…
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…
One of the possible mechanisms responsible for the panoply of shapes in planetary nebulae is the presence of magnetic fields that drive the ejection of ionized material during the proto-planetary nebula phase. Therefore, detecting magnetic…
Gravitational lensing due to the large-scale distribution of matter in the cosmos distorts the primordial Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) and thereby induces new, small-scale $B$-mode polarization. This signal carries detailed information…
Magnetic fields play a significant role in the evolution of massive stars. About 7% of massive stars are found to be magnetic at a level detectable with current instrumentation and only a few magnetic O stars are known. Detecting magnetic…
The recent measurement by Bignami and co-workers of the magnetic field of a neutron star for the first time gives a value that differs by about two orders of magnitude from the expected value. The speculation has been that the nuclear…
Extensions to General Relativity (GR) allow the polarization of gravitational waves (GW) from astrophysical sources to suffer from amplitude and velocity birefringence, which respectively induce changes in the ellipticity and orientation of…
Magnetars are comparatively young neutron stars with ultra-strong surface magnetic field in the range $10^{14-16}$ G. The old neutron stars have surface magnetic field some what less $\sim 10^8$ G which clearly indicates the decay of field…
Substantial progress has been achieved over the last decade in studies of stellar magnetism due to the improvement of magnetic field measurement methods. We review recent results on the magnetic field characteristics of early B- and O-type…
An initially isotropic medium, when subjected to either a magnetic field or a coherent field, can induce anisotropy in the medium and can cause the polarization of a probe field to rotate. Therefore the rotation of probe polarization, due…
The effect of a strong magnetic field on the dominant neutrino emissivity in strange stars is investigated. In ultra strong magnetic field, there exists an enhanced neutrino emission because the charged particles are confined to the lowest…