2011/04/18 by Iman Motie, Motie, Iman, She-Sheng Xue +1
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Phenomenology (hep-ph) #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1104.3555
12 pages, the version to appear in Europhysics Letters
openalex publication_date 2011/04/18 · arxiv created 2012/10/02 · arxiv updated 2012/10/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
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 solve the Quantum Boltzmann Equation for the density matrix describing an ensemble of photons in the space of energy-momentum and polarization states, and calculate the intensity of circular polarizations. Applying these results to a linear polarized thermal radiation, we calculate the circular polarization intensity, and discuss its possible relevance to the circular polarization intensity of the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation.