2007/05/31 by Shuang-Wei Hu, Bin-Bin Liu
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Geophysics and Sensor Technology #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/1751-8113/40/46/003
published as J.Phys.A40:13859-13868,2007 · 6 pages, 3 figures; v2: Several typos corrected, text improved
openalex publication_date 2007/10/31 · arxiv created 2007/11/05 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
The birefringence phenomenon in the vacuum with a constant magnetic background of arbitrary strength is considered within the framework of the effective action approach. A new feature of the birefringence in a magnetized vacuum is that the parallel mode, which is polarized parallel to the plane containing the magnetic field and the photon wave vector, is no longer transverse. We have studied this feature in detail for an arbitrary magnetic field and provided analytic results for the ultra-strong magnetic field regime. Possible physical implications of our results in astrophysics are discussed.