Freiburg 1998 – scientific programme

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T: Teilchenphysik

T 308: Strahlungskorrekturen

T 308.6: Talk

Tuesday, March 24, 1998, 17:35–17:50, HS H

Light Propagation in Non-Trivial Vacua — •H. Gies and W. Dittrich — Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Tübingen, Auf der Morgenstelle 14, D-72076 Tübingen

Within the framework of effective action QED, we derive the light cone condition for arbitrary non-trivial QED vacua in the geometric optics approximation. Our result generalizes the “unified formula” suggested by Latorre, Pascual and Tarrach [1] and allows for the calculation of refractive indices for soft photons travelling through these vacua. Furthermore, we clarify the connection between the light velocity shift and the scale anomaly presumed by Shore [2]. Several applications are given concerning vacuum modifications caused by, e.g., strong fields, Casimir systems and high temperature.

[1] J.L. Latorre, P. Pascual and R. Tarrach, Nucl. Phys. B437, 60 (1995)

[2] G. Shore, Nucl. Phys. B460, 379-396 (1996)