Four-wave interaction in gas and vacuum: definition of a third-order nonlinear effective susceptibility in vacuum: χvacuum(3)

Denis Bernard (1) , Frederic Moulin (2)

1 LLR - Laboratoire Leprince-Ringuet
2 ENS Cachan - École normale supérieure - Cachan

Semiclassical methods are used to study the nonlinear interaction of light in vacuum in the context of four wave mixing. This study is motivated by a desire to investigate the possibility of using recently developed powerful ultrashort (femtosecond) laser pulses to demonstrate the existence of nonlinear effects in vacuum, predicted by quantum electrodynamics (QED). An approach, similar to classical nonlinear optics in a medium, is developed in this article. A third-order nonlinear effective susceptibility of vacuum is then introduced.

Keywords: Light-by-light interaction; Four-wave mixing; Third-order nonlinear susceptibility; Vacuum interaction; Optical phase conjugation

Domains: Optics [physics.optics]

Denis Bernard, Frederic Moulin. Four-wave interaction in gas and vacuum: definition of a third-order nonlinear effective susceptibility in vacuum: χvacuum(3). Optics Communications, 1999, 164 (1), pp.137. ⟨hal-00496265⟩