Related papers: Optical Kerr effect in vacuum
We show that the leading derivative corrections to the Heisenberg-Euler effective action can be determined efficiently from the vacuum polarization tensor evaluated in a homogeneous constant background field. After deriving the explicit…
We propose to go away from the electromagnetic wave description of light and to explain through a purely corpuscular and neutral approach, the phenomenon of the slowing down of light in a transparent medium. The quantum predictions and ours…
Starting from the Heisenberg-Euler effective Lagrangian, we determine the photon current and photon polarization tensor in inhomogeneous, slowly varying electromagnetic fields. To this end, we consider background field configurations…
The invention of the laser immediately enabled the detection of nonlinear photon-matter interactions, as manifested for example by Franken et al.'s detection of second-harmonic generation. With the recent advancement in high-power,…
Birefringence is one of the fascinating properties of the vacuum of quantum electrodynamics (QED) in strong electromagnetic fields. The scattering of linearly polarized incident probe photons into a perpendicularly polarized mode provides a…
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…
We show that a laser beam can be diffracted by a more concentrated light pulse due to quantum vacuum effects. We compute analytically the intensity pattern in a realistic experimental configuration, and discuss how it can be used to measure…
We study the nonlinear QED signature of x-ray vacuum diffraction in the head-on collision of optical high-intensity and x-ray free-electron laser pulses at finite spatio-temporal offsets between the laser foci. The high-intensity laser…
Nonlinear electrodynamics naturally arises in quantum field theory, where the electromagnetic vacuum behaves as an effective nonlinear optical medium, leading to phenomena such as vacuum birefringence and dichroism. Among the recently…
Direct detection of vacuum fluctuations and analysis of sub-cycle quantum properties of the electric field are explored by a paraxial quantum theory of ultrafast electro-optic sampling. The feasibility of such experiments is demonstrated by…
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…
We predict theoretically and demonstrate experimentally an ellipticity-dependent nonlinear magneto-optic rotation of elliptically-polarized light propagating in a coherent atomic medium. We show that this effect results from a hexadecapole…
A system of equations has been proposed for a monochromatic weakly nonlinear light wave in a Kerr medium. This system is equivalent up to the third order in electric field to the known equation $\mbox{curl}\,\mbox{curl}\, {\bf E}=k_0^2[{\bf…
The quantum vacuum shows an intensity-dependent nonlinear index of refraction. Consequently, we may consider vacuum as a non-linear medium enabling, at sufficiently high field strengths, a direct interaction of light with light. In this…
All-optical experiments at the high-intensity frontier offer a promising route to unprecedented precision tests of quantum electrodynamics in strong macroscopic electromagnetic fields. So far, most theoretical studies of all-optical…
We consider a point charge fixed in the Rindler coordinates which describe a uniformly accelerated frame. We determine an integral expression of the induced charge density due to the vacuum polarization at the first order in the fine…
The propagation of a probe electromagnetic field through a counterpropagating strong plane wave is investigated. The effects of the electromagnetic field-(pseudo)scalar axion field interaction and of the self-interaction of the…
Vacuum birefringence is governed by the amplitude for a photon to flip helicity or polarisation state in an external field. Here we calculate the flip and non-flip amplitudes in arbitrary plane wave backgrounds, along with the induced…
We study the effect of laser photon merging, or equivalently high harmonic generation, in the quantum vacuum subject to inhomogeneous electromagnetic fields. Such a process is facilitated by the effective nonlinear couplings arising from…
A scalar Wigner distribution function for describing polarized light is proposed in analogy with the treatment of spin variables in quantum kinetic theory. The formalism is applied to the propagation of circularly polarized light in…