Hamiltonian birefringence and Born-Infeld limits

Abstract

Using Hamiltonian methods, we find six relativistic theories of nonlinear electrodynamics for which plane wave perturbations about a constant uniform background are not birefringent. All have the same conformal strong-field limit to Bialynicki-Birula (BB) electrodynamics, but only four avoid superluminal propagation: Born-Infeld (BI), its non-conformal “extreme” limits (electric and magnetic) and the conformal BB limit. The quadratic dispersion relation of BI is shown to degenerate in the extreme limits to a pair of linear relations, which become identical in the BB limit.