Related papers: Optical Kerr effect in vacuum
Our goal is to study optical signatures of quantum vacuum nonlinearities in strong macroscopic electromagnetic fields provided by high-intensity laser beams. The vacuum emission scheme is perfectly suited for this task as it naturally…
Vacuum fluctuations give rise to effective nonlinear interactions between electromagnetic fields. These generically modify the characteristics of light traversing a strong-field region. X-ray free-electron lasers constitute a particularly…
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…
The Heisenberg-Euler theory of the quantum vacuum supplements Maxwell's theory of electromagnetism with nonlinear light-light interactions. These originate in vacuum fluctuations, a key prediction of quantum theory, and can be triggered by…
The fundamental theory of quantum electrodynamics predicts the vacuum to resemble a polarizable medium. This gives rise to effective nonlinear interactions between electromagnetic fields and light-by-light scattering phenomena. We study the…
Vacuum polarization (VP) is investigated for the interaction of a polarized $\gamma$-ray beam of GeV photons with a counterpropagating ultraintense laser pulse. In a conventional setup of a vacuum birefringence measurement, a VP signal is…
These notes provide a pedagogical introduction to the theoretical study of vacuum polarization effects in strong electromagnetic fields as provided by state-of-the-art high-intensity lasers. Quantum vacuum fluctuations give rise to…
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…
Electromagnetic waves propagating through vacuum can polarize virtual electron-positron pairs; this polarization, in turn, nonlinearly modifies their propagation. A semi-classical nonlinear wave equation describing the propagation is…
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…
We demonstrated that by using a pump field with non-zero orbital angular momentum (OAM) in the polarization self-rotation squeezing process it is possible to generate a squeezed vacuum optical field with the matching OAM. We found a similar…
The appearance of unconventional vacuum properties in intense fields has long been an active field of research. In this paper the vacuum polarization effect is investigated via a pump probe scheme of a probe light propagating in the vacuum…
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…
We propose the application of nonlinear optics for studies of spatially indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells. We demonstrate, that despite their vanishing oscillator strength, indirect excitons can strongly contribute to the…
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…
Quantum Electrodynamics predicts that the vacuum must behave as a nonlinear optical medium:the vacuum optical index should increase when vacuum is stressed by intense electromagnetic fields.The DeLLight (Deflection of Light by Light)…
The probability of photon emission of a charged particle traversing a strong field becomes modified if vacuum polarization is considered. This feature is important for fundamental quantum electrodynamics processes present in extreme…
Quantum electrodynamics predicts that the vacuum must behave as a nonlinear optical medium: the speed of light should be modified when the vacuum is stressed by intense electromagnetic fields. This optical phenomenon has not yet been…
The photon polarization tensor is the central building block of an effective theory description of photon propagation in the quantum vacuum. It accounts for the vacuum fluctuations of the underlying theory, and in the presence of external…
We study all-optical signatures of the effective nonlinear couplings among electromagnetic fields in the quantum vacuum, using the collision of two focused high-intensity laser pulses as an example. The experimental signatures of quantum…