The Euler-Heisenberg Effective Action: History and Scientific Legacy |
| TYPE | Colloquium |
| Speaker: | Professor Gerald V. Dunne |
| Affiliation: | Department of Physics University of Connecticut |
| Date: | 27.01.2014 |
| Time: | 14:30 |
| Location: | Lidow Rosen Auditorium (323) |
| Abstract: | In a classic paper in 1935, Heisenberg and his student Hans Euler computed the all-orders QED vacuum polarization effect due to an external uniform electromagnetic field, quantifying for the first time the possibility of photon-photon scattering, vacuum birefringence, and particle production from vacuum. Although it preceded the formal theory of QED by many years, this paper has been hugely influential, playing a role in relativistic quantum field theory analogous to Landau's work on diamagnetism, and Casmir's work on photon vacuum polarization effects. This talk discusses the historical context, the scientific ideas and some of the applications of this work. |