Coulomb field in a constant electromagnetic background

Abstract

Nonlinear Maxwell equations are written up to the third-power deviations from a constant-field background, valid within any local nonlinear electrodynamics including QED with a Euler-Heisenberg (EH) effective Lagrangian. The linear electric response to an imposed static finite-sized charge is found in the vacuum filled by an arbitrary combination of constant and homogeneous electric and magnetic fields. The modified Coulomb field and corrections to the total charge and to the charge density are given in terms of derivatives of the effective Lagrangian with respect to the field invariants. These are specialized for the EH Lagrangian.