Search for an Effect of Magnetic Fields on Electromagnetic Radiation

Abstract

IT has been suggested that some anomalies in astronomical observations may involve a photon–photon interaction of the type1: where K is a constant equal to 2.6 × 10−15, l is the path length in cm, and U is the energy density in erg/cm3. It has further been suggested that the Mossbauer effect might be used to provide a test of this hypothesis if the radiation could be passed through a region of high photon density such as might be obtained in the vicinity of plasma2. Since the form of this proposed interaction does not contain any frequency-dependence and since if it were to exist it would contradict accepted electromagnetic theory, it seemed that assuming U to be the energy density due to a static electromagnetic field was not an unallowable extension of an already radical hypothesis. Since a static magnetic field is not quite analogous to the original circumstances discussed in ref. 1, this experiment does not fully test the hypothesis stated in equation (1). However, a magnetic field produces by far the largest electromagnetic energy density obtainable in the laboratory (this was pointed out to us by J. Heberle) and thus provides a conveniently easy experiment.