SAMOP 2023 – scientific programme
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A: Fachverband Atomphysik
A 4: Quantum Effects (QED) (joint session Q/A)
A 4.8: Talk
Monday, March 6, 2023, 12:45–13:00, F442
Dispersive and dissipative dielectrics with ‘scalar-field’ type environments — •Sascha Lang1,2,3, Stefan Yoshi Buhmann1, Ralf Schützhold2,4,3, and William G. Unruh5,6 — 1University of Kassel, Germany — 2Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Germany — 3Universität Duisburg-Essen, Germany — 4Technische Universität Dresden, Germany — 5University of British Columbia, Canada — 6Texas A&M University, United States
Macroscopic quantum electrodynamics provides a powerful framework for studying a large variety of dispersive and dissipative media [1]. To account for quantum fluctuations, a noise polarisation is manually incorporated into the formalism. This phenomenological approach is inspired by microscopic derivations (based on, e.g., the famous Huttner-Barnett model [2]) which explicitly describe damping via interactions with baths of harmonic oscillators. Unfortunately, models with harmonic-bath type environments are usually quite involved and facilitate straightforward solutions only for time independent systems and in the case of relatively simple position dependences.
We present an alternative approach and model dissipation via a scalar field that may carry energy and information away from the medium [3,4]. This model is much simpler than established microscopic descriptions and still holds for explicitly time-dependent systems.
[1] Scheel & Buhmann, Acta Phys. Slov. 58, 675 (2008)
[2] Huttner & Barnett, PRA 46, 4306 (1992)
[3] Lang, Schützhold & Unruh, PRD 102, 125020 (2020)
[4] Lang, Sauerbrey, Schützhold & Unruh, PRR 4, 033074 (2022)