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Demonstration of an interferometric technique for measuring vacuum magnetic birefringence with an optical cavity

Aaron D. Spector* and Todd Kozlowski

Laura Roberts

  • *Contact author: aaron.spector@desy.de
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Phys. Rev. A 113, 063518 – Published 11 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/r33m-v1kn

Abstract

Vacuum magnetic birefringence (VMB) is an effect predicted by quantum electrodynamics in which the vacuum behaves as a nonlinear optical medium and exhibits a birefringence in the presence of a magnetic field. In this work, an interferometric scheme is introduced to measure this effect by sensing the changes in the frequencies of fields stabilized to the resonances of an optical cavity. Results are presented from a prototype setup with this sensing technique implemented on a 19-m test cavity without a magnetic field. We propose using this scheme for a measurement of VMB with a 245-m-long optical cavity and a string of 24 superconducting magnets, arranged for the ALPS II experiment. In this manuscript we examine potential sources of noise in the prototype and project these results in terms of the sensitivity of the full-scale experiment.

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Phys. Rev. A 113, 063518– Published 11 June, 2026
  • Received 11 March 2026
  • Accepted 27 May 2026
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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