Semiclassical back reaction around a cosmic dislocation

The energy-momentum vacuum average of a conformally coupled massless scalar field vibrating around a cosmic dislocation (a cosmic string with a dislocation along its axis) is taken as source of the linearized semiclassical Einstein equations. The solution up to first order in the Planck constant is derived. Motion of a test particle is then discussed, showing that under certain circumstances a helical-like dragging effect, with no classical analogue around the cosmic dislocation, is induced by back reaction.Comment: Published version, 4 pages, no figures, REVTeX4 fil

Light propagation in non linear electrodynamics

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.Comment: 3 pages, latex, no figures (to appear in Phys. Lett. B