On the possibility of Vacuum-QED measurements with gravitational wave detectors

Abstract

Quantum electro dynamics (QED) comprises virtual particle production and thus gives rise to a refractive index of the vacuum larger than unity in the presence of a magnetic field. This predicted effect has not been measured to date, even after considerable effort of a number of experiments. It has been proposed by other authors to possibly use gravitational wave detectors for such vacuum QED measurements, and we give this proposal some new consideration in this paper. In particular we look at possible source field magnet designs and further constraints on the implementation at a gravitational wave detector. We conclude that such an experiment seems to be feasible with permanent magnets, yet still challenging in its implementation.