Light propagation in non linear electrodynamics

TL;DR

This paper derives light cone conditions in nonlinear electrodynamics, identifying polarization states and birefringence effects, with applications to the Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian, providing insights into light propagation in such theories.

Contribution

It presents a method to determine light cone conditions in nonlinear electrodynamics without averaging over polarizations, highlighting birefringence phenomena.

Findings

Derived light cone conditions for nonlinear theories

Identified polarization states related to birefringence

Validated formalism with Euler-Heisenberg results

Abstract

Working on the approximation of low frequency, we present the light cone conditions for a class of theories constructed with the two gauge invariants of the Maxwell field without making use of average over polarization states. Different polarization states are thus identified describing birefringence phenomena. We make an application of the formalism to the case of Euler-Heisenberg effective Lagrangian and well know results are obtained.