Vacuum Birefringence as a Vacuum Emission Process
arXiv:1510.03178
Abstract
We argue that the phenomenon of vacuum birefringence in strong inhomogeneous electromagnetic fields can be most efficiently analyzed in terms of a vacuum emission process. In this contribution, we exemplarily stick to the case of vacuum birefringence in a stationary perpendicularly directed, purely magnetic background field extending over a finite spatial extent. Similar field configurations are realized in the BMV and PVLAS experiments. We demonstrate that we can reproduce the conventional constant field result. Our focus is on effects which arise when the probe photons originate in the field free region, are directed towards the magnetic field region, and detected well after the interaction with the magnetic field has taken place, again at zero field.
7 pages, 1 figure; contribution to the PHOTON 2015 Conference, Novosibirsk, Russia, June 15-19, 2015
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- Vacuum birefringence in strong inhomogeneous electromagnetic fields
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- Probing vacuum birefringence using x-ray free electron and optical high-intensity lasers
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- Vacuum birefringence in the head-on collision of XFEL and optical high-intensity laser pulses
- Prospects for studying vacuum polarisation using dipole and synchrotron radiation
- Detectable Optical Signatures of QED Vacuum Nonlinearities using High-Intensity Laser Fields
- Parametric Resonance in Quantum Electrodynamics Vacuum Birefringence