Related papers: HEWES: Heisenberg-Euler Weak-Field Expansion Simul…
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…
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…
The classical nonlinear laser-plasma interaction theory is corrected. Given the effects of vacuum polarization (induced by extreme laser) as nonlinear media response, one-dimensional wave equations of a monochromatic laser field are derived…
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…
Optical signatures of the effective nonlinear couplings among electromagnetic fields in the quantum vacuum can be conveniently described in terms of stimulated photon emission processes induced by strong classical, space-time dependent…
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…
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…
We consider the Heisenberg-Euler action for an electromagnetic field in vacuum, which includes quantum corrections to the Maxwell equations induced by photon-photon scattering. We show that, in some configurations, the plane monochromatic…
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…
The tremendous progress in high-intensity laser technology and the establishment of dedicated high-field laboratories in recent years have paved the way towards a first observation of quantum vacuum nonlinearities at the high-intensity…
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…
When photons propagate in vacuum they may fluctuate into matter pairs thus allowing the vacuum to be polarised. This linear effect leads to charge screening and renormalisation. When exposed to an intense background field a nonlinear effect…
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…
The QED effective action encodes nonlinear interactions due to quantum vacuum polarization effects. While much is known for the special case of electrons in a constant electromagnetic field (the Euler-Heisenberg case), much less is known…
Scalar Quantum Electrodynamics is investigated in the Heisenberg picture via the Duffin-Kemmer-Petiau gauge theory. On this framework, a perturbative method is used to compute the vacuum polarization tensor and its corresponding induced…
When exposed to intense electromagnetic fields, the quantum vacuum is expected to exhibit properties of a polarisable medium akin to a weakly nonlinear dielectric material. Various schemes have been proposed to measure such vacuum…
Quantum electrodynamics predicts the vacuum to behave as a non-linear medium, including effects such as birefringence. However, for experimentally available field strengths, this vacuum polarizability is extremely small and thus very hard…
Vacuum polarization mediated by quark loops is susceptible to external electromagnetic fields as well as to the QCD vacuum structure. Employing the stochastic vacuum model, we calculate the modification of the one-loop Euler-Heisenberg…
Quantum vacuum fluctuations give rise to effective non-linear interactions between electromagnetic fields. A prominent signature of quantum vacuum nonlinearities driven by macroscopic fields are signal photons differing in characteristic…
Considering the effective Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian, i.e., non-linear photon-photon interactions, we study the circular polarization of electromagnetic radiation based on the time-evolution of Stokes parameters. To the leading order, we…