Testing vacuum electrodynamics using `slow light' experiments

Abstract

A recent proposal to explore vacuum electrodynamics using the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic pulse through an ambient constant magnetic field is examined. It is argued that the proposal should be modified so that the background magnetic field, the direction of propagation and the transverse projection of the electric field (with respect to the direction of propagation) are not coplanar. The implications of invariance under Gibbons' electric-magnetic duality rotations are determined in this context.