Experimental observation of optical rotation generated in vacuum by a magnetic field

Phys Rev Lett. 2006 Mar 24;96(11):110406. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.96.110406. Epub 2006 Mar 24.

Abstract

We report the experimental observation of a light polarization rotation in vacuum in the presence of a transverse magnetic field. Assuming that data distribution is Gaussian, the average measured rotation is (3.9 +/- 0.5) x 10(-12) rad/pass, at 5 T with 44 000 passes through a 1 m long magnet, with lambda = 1064 nm. The relevance of this result in terms of the existence of a light, neutral, spin-zero particle is discussed.