Scattering of Light by Light
In 1936, well before the invention of quantum electrodynamics (QED),
Heisenberg and his student Euler wrote an effective classical Lagrangian
for light-light interaction (non-linear optics!) based on quantum
mechanical modifications of E&M and Dirac's wave equation.
In my talk, I will explain how the non-linearity of low-energy
light-light interactions can be seen from QED.
Important concepts like renormalization will be discussed, and I will
end with recent proposals for experiments that measure this
(very small) effect.
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