Birefringence in nonlinear anisotropic dielectric media

TL;DR

This paper explores light propagation in nonlinear anisotropic dielectric media, identifying conditions for birefringence and demonstrating how external fields can control it, with implications for effective geometry interpretation.

Contribution

It presents the first detailed analysis of birefringence conditions in nonlinear anisotropic media and introduces a toy model for external field-controlled birefringence.

Findings

Birefringence conditions in nonlinear media are established.

External fields can artificially control birefringence.

Effective geometry interpretation is discussed.

Abstract

Light propagation is investigated in the context of local anisotropic nonlinear dielectric media at rest with the dielectric coefficients $\epsilon^\mu{}_\nu = \epsilon^\mu{}_\nu (\vec{E},\vec{B})$ and constant $\mu$, in the limit of geometrical optics. Birefringence was examined and the general conditions for its occurrence were presented. A toy model is exhibited, in which uniaxial birefringent media with nonlinear dielectric properties could be driven by external fields in such way that birefringence may be artificially controlled. The effective geometry interpretation is also addressed.