Susceptibility of a single photon wave packet

Abstract

The explicit compact expression for the susceptibility tensor of a single photon wave packet on the photon mass-shell is derived. It is assumed that the probe photon is hard, the test photon is soft, and their total energy is below the electron-positron pair creation threshold. It turns out that a single photon wave packet can be regarded as a birefringent gyrotropic dispersive medium in the process of light-by-light scattering. The explicit expression for the inclusive probability to record the probe photon in the process of light-by-light scattering is obtained in the first nontrivial order of perturbation theory where the interference effect of the free passed and scattered parts of the photon wave function dominates. This effect is of order ${\alpha }^2$ in contrast to the standard contribution to the light-by-light scattering cross-section which is of order ${\alpha }^4$. The possible nontrivial shapes of the wave functions of probe and test photons are taken into account. The evolution of the Stokes parameters of a probe photon is described. The change of the Stokes parameters is rather large for hard probe photons and sufficiently intense beams of soft test photons.

arXiv comment15 pp., 1 fig; some misprints corrected

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