  Extremely strong magnetic fields change the vacuum index of refraction. This
induces a lensing effect that is not unlike the lensing phenomenon in strong
gravitational fields. The main difference between the two is the polarization
dependency of the magnetic lensing, a behaviour that induces a handful of
interesting effects. The main prediction is that the thermal emission of
neutron stars with extremely strong magnetic fields is polarized - up to a few
percent for the largest fields known. This potentially allows a direct method
for measuring their magnetic fields.
