Effects of non-linear vacuum electrodynamics on the polarization plane of light

Abstract

We consider the Pleba{ń}ski class of nonlinear theories of vacuum electrodynamics, i.e., Lagrangian theories that are Lorentz invariant and gauge invariant. Our main goal is to derive the transport law of the polarization plane in such a theory, on an unspecified general-relativistic spacetime and with an unspecified electromagnetic background field. To that end we start out from an approximate-plane-harmonic-wave ansatz that takes the generation of higher harmonics into account. By this ansatz, the electromagnetic field is written as an asymptotic series with respect to a parameter $\alpha$, where the limit $\alpha \to 0$ corresponds to sending the frequency to infinity. We demonstrate that by solving the generalized Maxwell equations to zeroth and first order with respect to $\alpha$ one gets a unique transport law for the polarization plane along each light ray. We exemplify the general results with the Born-Infeld theory.

Minor revisions; 12 pages, no figures

References in corpus (7)

• Evidence for vacuum birefringence from the first optical polarimetry measurement of the isolated neutron star RX\, J1856.5$-$3754
• On light propagation in premetric electrodynamics. Covariant dispersion relation
• Testing Born-Infeld electrodynamics in waveguides
• Interferometry of light propagation in pulsed fields
• On the possibility of Vacuum-QED measurements with gravitational wave detectors
• Probing For New Physics and Detecting non linear vacuum QED effects using gravitational wave interferometer antennas
• Photon propagator for axion electrodynamics

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Light rings and causality for nonsingular ultracompact objects sourced by nonlinear electrodynamics
• Light Propagation in the vicinity of the ModMax black hole
• Light propagation in the field of the N-body system and the application in the TianQin mission
• Non-linear electrodynamics non-minimally coupled to gravity:symmetric-hyperbolicity and causal structure
• Structure and thermodynamics of charged nonrotating black holes in higher dimensions
• Degenerate behavior in nonlinear vacuum electrodynamics