1998/03/13 by S. Scheel, L. Knoell, D. -G. Welsch · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.58.700
15 pages
arxiv created 1998/03/13 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
Recently a quantization scheme for the phenomenological Maxwell theory of the full electromagnetic field in an inhomogeneous three-dimensional, dispersive, and absorbing dielectric medium has been developed and applied to a system consisting of two infinite half-spaces with a common planar interface (H.T. Dung, L. Knoell, and D.-G. Welsch, Phys. Rev. A 57, in press). Here we show that the scheme, which is based on the classical Green-tensor integral representation of the electromagnetic field, applies to any inhomogeneous medium. For this purpose we prove that the fundamental equal-time commutation relations of QED are preserved for an arbitrarily space-dependent, Kramers--Kronig consistent permittivity. Further, an extension of the quantization scheme to linear media with bounded regions of amplification is given, and the problem of anisotropic media is briefly addressed.