1998/01/16 by Ralf Schützhold, G. Plunien, Guenter Plunien +2
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Random lasers and scattering media #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.58.1783
published as Phys.Rev. A58 (1998) 1783 · 20 pages
arxiv created 1998/01/16 · openalex publication_date 1998/09/01 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
A canonical formalism is presented that allows for investigations of quantum radiation induced by localized, smooth disturbances of classical background fields by means of a perturbation theory approach. For massless, nonself-interacting quantum fields at zero temperature, we demonstrate that the low-energy part of the spectrum of created particles exhibits a nonthermal character. Applied to QED in varying dielectrics, the response theory approach facilitates the study of two distinct processes contributing to the production of photons: the squeezing effect due to space-time varying properties of the medium and the velocity effect due to its motion. An alternative quantization method of the electromagnetic field in linear, inhomogeneous but nondispersive dynamical dielectrics is proposed. The generalization of this approach to finite temperatures as well as the relation to sonoluminescence is indicated.