QED vacuum fluctuations and induced electric dipole moment of the neutron

C.A. DOMINGUEZ; H. FALOMIR; M. IPINZA; S. KOHLER; M. LOEWE; J.C. ROJAS

PHYSICAL REVIEW D - PARTICLE AND FILDS

The American Physical Society

Año: 2009 vol. 80 p. 1 - 4

0556-2821

Quantum fluctuations in the QED vacuum generate non-linear effects, such as peculiar induced electromagnetic fields. In particular, we show here that an electrically neutral particle, possessing a magnetic dipole moment, develops an induced electric dipole-type moment with unusual angular dependence, when immersed in a quasi-static, constant external electric field. The calculation of this effect is done in the framework of the Euler-Heisenberg effective QED Lagrangian, corresponding to the weak field asymptotic expansion of the effective action to one-loop order. It is argued that the neutron might be a good candidate to probe this signal of non-linearity in QED.