M. Novello

We show that nonlinear electrodynamics may induce a photon to follow a closed curve in spacetime. We exhibit a specific case in which such a closed spacelike curve appears.

Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A) is an international journal which publishes papers on all aspects of astronomy and astrophysics

We present a model for a spacetime dependent cosmological {\it constant}. We make a realization of this model based on a possible quantum aspects of the initial stage of the universe and relate the cosmological constant with the chiral anomaly.

Constraints on the Yukawa-type corrections to Newtonian gravitational law are obtained resulting from the measurement of the Casimir force between two crossed cylinders. The new constraints are stronger than those previously derived in the interaction range between 1.5 nm and 11 nm. The maximal strengthening in 300 times is achieved at 4.26 nm. Possible applications of the obtained results to the elementary particle physics are discussed.

In the context of the static and spherically symmetric solution of a charged compact object, we present the expression for the bending of light in the region just outside the event horizon (the dyadosphere) where vacuum polarization effects are taken into account.

The recent ideas that the gravitational and gauge interactions become united at the weak scale lead to Yukawa-type corrections to the Newtonian gravitational law at small distances. We briefly summarize the best constraints on these corrections obtained recently from the experiments on the measurement of the Casimir force. The new constraints on the Yukawa-type interaction are derived from the latest Casimir force measurement between a large gold coated sphere and flat disk using an atomic force microscope. The obtained constraints are stronger up to 19 times comparing the previous experiment with aluminum surfaces and up to 4500 times comparing the Casimir force measurements between dielectrics. The application range of constraints obtained by means of an atomic force microscope is extended.

Using the effective metric formalism for photons in a nonlinear electromagnetic theory, we show that a certain field configuration in Born-Infeld electromagnetism in flat spacetime can be interpreted as an ultrastatic spherically symmetric wormhole. We also discuss some properties of the effective metric that are valid for any field configuration.

Working on the approximation of low frequency, we present the light cone conditions for a class of theories constructed with the two gauge invariants of the Maxwell field without making use of average over polarization states. Different polarization states are thus identified describing birefringence phenomena. We make an application of the formalism to the case of Euler-Heisenberg effective Lagrangian and well know results are obtained.