1997/11/19 by Ho Trung Dung, L. Knöll, L. Knoell +2 · 9 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Photonic Crystals and Applications #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.57.3931
arxiv created 1997/11/19 · openalex publication_date 1998/05/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A quantization scheme for the phenomenological Maxwell theory of the full electromagnetic field in an inhomogeneous three-dimensional, dispersive, and absorbing dielectric medium is developed. The classical Maxwell equations with spatially varying and Kramers-Kronig consistent permittivity are regarded as operator-valued field equations, introducing additional current- and charge-density operator fields in order to take into account the noise associated with the dissipation in the medium. It is shown that the equal-time commutation relations between the fundamental electromagnetic fields E^ and B^ and the potentials A^ and \stackrel^\ensuremathφ in the Coulomb gauge can be expressed in terms of the Green tensor of the classical problem. From the Green tensors for bulk material and an inhomogeneous medium consisting of two bulk dielectrics with a common planar interface it is explicitly proven that the well-known equal-time commutation relations of QED are preserved.