Polariton excitation rates from time dependent dielectrics

Abstract

In recent years, a rigorous quantum mechanical model for the interaction between light and macroscopic dispersive, lossy dielectrics has emerged-macroscopic QED-allowing the application of the usual methods of quantum field theory. Here, we apply time dependent perturbation theory to a general class of problems involving time dependent lossy, dispersive dielectrics. The model is used to derive polariton excitation rates in three illustrative cases, including that of a travelling Gaussian perturbation to the susceptibility of an otherwise infinite homogeneous dielectric, motivated by recent experiments on analogue Hawking radiation. We find that the excitation rate is increased when the wave-vector and frequency of each polariton in the pair either satisfies (or nearly satisfies) the dispersion relation for electromagnetic waves, or is close to a material resonance.

New Horizons in Near-Zero Refractive Index Photonics and Hyperbolic Metamaterials

“…Furthermore, other exotic ideas may soon be realized, such as implementing spatiotemporal modulations and non-parametric gain, , chiral pulse amplification, or Floquet topological modes . Further possibilities include enhanced emission and mirrorless lasing, subdiffractional-mode excitation on non-structured surfaces, the spontaneous generation of polariton pairs from the quantum vacuum through the dynamic Casimir effect, − the control over all entanglement degrees of freedom of single photons, and the enhancement and tailoring of spontaneous emission of free electrons …”