Magnetic and electric properties of a quantum vacuum

In this report we show that a vacuum is a nonlinear optical medium and discuss what the optical phenomena are that should exist in the framework of the standard model of particle physics. We pay special attention to the low energy limit. The predicted effects for photons of energy smaller than the electron rest mass are of such a level that none have yet been observed experimentally. Progress in field sources and related techniques seem to indicate that in a few years vacuum nonlinear optics will be accessible to human investigation.