Light bullets and optical collapse in vacuum

In quantum electrodynamics, photon-photon scattering can be the result of the exchange of virtual electron-positron pairs. Effectively, this gives rise to self-interaction terms in Maxwell's equations, similar to the nonlinearities due to polarization in nonlinear optics. These self-interaction terms vanish in the limit of parallel propagating waves. However if the modes generated in bounded regions are used, there will be a nonzero total effect. We show that stationary two-dimensional light bullets can form in guiding structures, due to the balancing effect of quantum electrodynamical vacuum nonlinearities on dispersion and diffraction. These light bullets are unstable and exhibit the possibility of self-focusing collapse. The consequences of our results are also discussed. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.