Hannover 2020 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 38: Quantum Effects (QED) I
Q 38.7: Talk
Wednesday, March 11, 2020, 15:30–15:45, f442
Quantum radiation in dielectric media with dispersion and dissipation — •Sascha Lang1,2, Ralf Schützhold1,3, and William G. Unruh4 — 1Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, 01328 Dresden, Germany — 2Fakultät für Physik, Universität Duisburg-Essen, 47057 Duisburg, Germany — 3Institut für Theoretische Physik, Technische Universität Dresden, 01062 Dresden, Germany — 4Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of British Columbia, Vancouver BC V6T 1Z1, Canada
By a generalization of the Hopfield model, we construct a microscopic Lagrangian describing a dielectric medium with dispersion and dissipation. This facilitates a well-defined and unambiguous ab initio treatment of quantum electrodynamics in such media, even in time-dependent backgrounds. As an example, we calculate the number of photons created by switching on and off dissipation in dependence on the temporal switching function. This effect may be stronger than quantum radiation produced by variations of the refractive index Δ n(t) since the latter are typically very small and yield photon numbers of order Δ n2(t). As another difference, we find that the partner particles of the created medium photons are not other medium photons but excitations of the environment field causing the dissipation (which is switched on and off).