Recent Results from the PVLAS Experiment on the Magnetized Vacuum

The vacuum element can be used as a target in a photon-photon collider in order to study its properties. Some of these properties are predicted by Quantum Electrodynamics, while additional and unexpected properties might be linked to the existence of yet undiscovered axion-like particles (ALPs) interacting with two photons. In this low energy case (1–2 texteV), real photons from a polarized laser beam are scattered off virtual photons provided by a magnetic field. Information on the scattering processes can be obtained by measuring changes in the polarization state of the probe photons. In the PVLAS (Polarizzazione del Vuoto con LASer) experiment, running at the Legnaro Laboratory of the Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), near Padova, Italy, a linearly polarized laser beam is sent through a 5 textT strong magnetic field in vacuum, where it is reflected back and forth, by means of a Fabry-P’erot resonator, ∼ 50,000 times over a distance of 1 textm. A heterodyne ellipsometer allows the simultaneous detection of a birefringence and a rotation of the polarization plane. The sensitivity of the instrument allows the detection of rotation or of ellipticity angles of about 10-9 textrad, in an hour of data taking. The measurement technique employed by PVLAS will be illustrated, and recent results on polarization effects due to the magnetized vacuum will be presented in this chapter. The interpretation of these effects in terms of the production of ALPs will also be discussed. Finally, the realization of a photon-regeneration type experiment will be briefly illustrated.