Related papers: A laser heterodyne polarimeter for birefringence m…
Probing vacuum structures deformed by high intense fields is of great interest in general. In the context of quantum electrodynamics (QED), the vacuum exposed by a linearly polarized high-intensity laser field is expected to show…
Vacuum magnetic birefringence was predicted long time ago and is still lacking a direct experimental confirmation. Several experimental efforts are striving to reach this goal, and the sequence of results promises a success in the next few…
Vacuum birefringence produces a differential phase between orthogonally polarized components of a weak electromagnetic probe in the presence of a strong electromagnetic field. Despite representing a hallmark prediction of quantum…
Although experimental efforts have been active for about 30 years now, a direct laboratory observation of vacuum magnetic birefringence, an effect due to vacuum fluctuations, still needs confirmation. Indeed, the predicted birefringence of…
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…
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…
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…
We propose a measurement of laser-induced vacuum birefringence through the use of pulsed lasers coupled to femtosecond optical enhancement cavities. This measurement technique features cavity-enhanced pump and probe pulses, as well as an…
In this paper we propose an all-optical vacuum birefringence experiment and evaluate its feasibility for various scenarios. Many petawatt-class lasers became operational and many more are expected to enter operation in the near future,…
The design, construction and operation of a Compton back-scattering laser polarimeter at the HERA storage ring at DESY are described. The device measures the longitudinal polarization of the electron beam between the spin rotators at the…
We present the current status and outlook of the optical characterization of the polarimeter at the Bir\'{e}fringence Magn\'etique du Vide (BMV) experiment. BMV is a polarimetric search for the QED predicted anisotropy of vacuum in the…
An easily constructed and operated polarimeter precisely determines the relative Stokes parameters that characterize the polarization of laser light. The polarimeter is calibrated in situ without removing or realigning its optical elements,…
A Fabry-Perot cavity polarimeter, installed in 2003 at HERA for the second phase of its operation, is described. The cavity polarimeter was designed to measure the longitudinal polarisation of the HERA electron beam with high precision for…
Laser heterodyne interferometry plays a key role in the proof mass's monitor and control by measuring its multiple degrees of freedom motions in the Space Gravitational Wave Detection. Laboratory development of polarization-multiplexing…
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…
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 novel polarisation modulation scheme for polarimeters based on Fabry-Perot cavities is presented. The application to the proposed HERA-X experiment aiming to measuring the magnetic birefringence of vacuum with the HERA superconducting…
We present an in-situ method to measure the birefringence of a single vacuum window by means of microwave spectroscopy on an ensemble of cold atoms. Stress-induced birefringence can cause an ellipticity in the polarization of an initially…
Vacuum birefringence is one of the most striking predictions of strong field quantum electrodynamics: Probe photons traversing a strong field region can indirectly sense the applied "pump" electromagnetic field via quantum fluctuations of…
Axions have attracted attention as promising candidates for dark matter (DM). Although axions have been intensively searched for, they have not been observed yet. Recently, novel experiments to search for axion DM have been proposed that…