In 1865 Maxwell published the paper which unified electricity, magnetism and optics and describe them by a set of equations (latter a bit corrected by Heaviside) which are known now as Maxwell equations. The spacetime symmetry of these equations, described by the so-called Lorentz group, was
\nunexpected in XIX century and served as an inspiration for Albert Einstein in his discovery of the Special Theory of Relativity.<\/p>\n
Free Maxwell equations, which describe the propagation of light in the vacuum, possess, besides the Lorentz group, two more very special symmetries: conformal symmetry, described by suitable re-scaling of spacetime coordinates and fields, and the duality symmetry which interchanges\/rotates the electric and magnetic fields. Till recently it was believed that the requirement of these three symmetries fixes the Maxwell theory uniquely.<\/p>\n
However, in a recent paper <\/a>published in Rapid Communication of Physical Review D<\/a> by the member of GRASS team Igor Bandos with collaborators from Italy (Padova University) and United Kingdom (Cambridge University), \u00a0 a new one-parametric family of nonlinear theories possessing these three symmetries was found and called Modified Maxwell or ModMax theories. The free Maxwell equations appear as a member of the family of nonlinear equations corresponding to zero value of the coupling constant\u00a0 \u03b3.<\/p>\n For any positive \u03b3, the equations possess the plane wave solutions and, thus, at small \u03b3>0, can be considered as an alternative to the Maxwell theory for the description of the light in vacuum and\/or in optical materials. The ModMax equations predict, in particular, the birefringence effect the properties of which differ from that predicted by effective theory of usual Quantum Furthermore, a possible small but non-vanishing \u03b3 in real world electrodynamics can have also wide range of interesting implications including that for cosmology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In 1865 Maxwell published the paper which unified electricity, magnetism and optics and describe them by a set of equations (latter a bit corrected by Heaviside) which are known now as Maxwell equations. The spacetime symmetry of these equations, described by the so-called Lorentz group, was unexpected in XIX century and served as an inspiration … <\/p>\n
\nElectrodynamics. Therefore, its existence should be taken into account in the analysis of future experiments aimed to observe the birefringence effect in the vacuum.<\/p>\n