Magnetic Linear Birefringence Measurements Using Pulsed Fields

Paul Berceau (1) , Mathilde Fouché (1) , Rémy Battesti (1) , Carlo Rizzo (1)

1 LNCMI-T - Laboratoire national des champs magnétiques intenses - Toulouse

In this paper we present the realization of further steps towards the measurement of the magnetic birefringence of the vacuum using pulsed fields. After describing our experiment, we report the calibration of our apparatus using nitrogen gas and we discuss the precision of our measurement giving a detailed error budget. Our best present vacuum upper limit is Dn < 5.0x10^(-20) T^-2 per 4 ms acquisition time. We finally discuss the improvements necessary to reach our final goal.

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]; Supraconductivité [cond-mat.supr-con]

Paul Berceau, Mathilde Fouché, Rémy Battesti, Carlo Rizzo. Magnetic Linear Birefringence Measurements Using Pulsed Fields. Physical Review A : Atomic, molecular, and optical physics [1990-2015], 2012, 85, pp.013837. ⟨hal-00625664v2⟩