On the Observation of Vacuum Birefringence

Preprint

10 January 2006

preprint
Published by arXiv in arXiv

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.hep-ph/0601076

Abstract

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 latter is probed by a linearly polarized x-ray pulse. We calculate the resulting ellipticity signal within strong-field QED assuming Gaussian beams. The laser technology required for detecting the signal will be available within the next three years.

Keywords

OBSERVATION OF VACUUM
VACUUM BIREFRINGENCE
LASER TECHNOLOGY
HIGH INTENSITY
INTENSE LASER
BIREFRINGENT
LASER PULSE
POLARIZED

All Related Versions

Version 1, 2006-01-10, ArXiv
Published version: Optics Communications, 267 (2), 318.

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