Phase and direction dependence of photorefraction in a low-frequency strong circular-polarized plane wave**Project supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No. 2011CB808104) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 11105233).

Abstract

Contrary to the superposition principle, it is well known that photorefraction exists in the vacuum with the presence of a strong static field, a laser field, or a rotational magnetic field. Different from the classical optical crystals, the refractive index also depends on the phase of the strong electromagnetic field. We obtain the phase and direction dependence of the refractive index of a probe wave incident in the strong field of a circular-polarized plane wave by solving the Maxwell equations corrected by the effective Lagrangian. It may provide a valuable theoretical basis to calculate the polarization evolution of waves in the strong electromagnetic circumstances of pulsar or neutron stars.