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Physical Review A

Correlation of radiation-field ground-state fluctuations in a dispersive and lossy dielectric

Toralf Gruner, D.‐G. Welsch

Published Apr 1, 1995• 101 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The correlation of the quantum-mechanical ground-state fluctuations of the electric-field strength in a dispersive and lossy linear dielectric are studied in terms of the symmetrized autocorrelation function, with special emphasis on the optical frequency domain. Starting from the canonical quantization scheme developed by Huttner and Barnett [Phys. Rev. A 46, 4306 (1992)], the analysis is based on a quantization of the phenomenological Maxwell theory, the effect of the medium being described by a frequency-dependent complex permittivity. In this way, the spectrally resolved ground-state autocorrelation function of the electric-field strength can be expressed in terms of the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index. Both analytical and numerical results are presented and the effects of dispersion and absorption including their dependence on the frequency interval chosen are discussed. A comparison with the vacuum fluctuations in free space is given.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.51.3246

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The correlation of the quantum-mechanical ground-state fluctuations of the electric-field strength in a dispersive and lossy linear dielectric are studied in terms of the symmetrized autocorrelation function, with special emphasis on the optical frequency domain. Starting from the canonical quantization scheme developed by Huttner and Barnett [Phys. Rev. A 46, 4306 (1992)], the analysis is based on a quantization of the phenomenological Maxwell theory, the effect of the medium being described by a frequency-dependent complex permittivity. In this way, the spectrally resolved ground-state autocorrelation function of the electric-field strength can be expressed in terms of the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index. Both analytical and numerical results are presented and the effects of dispersion and absorption including their dependence on the frequency interval chosen are discussed. A comparison with the vacuum fluctuations in free space is given.
Using the Green-function approach to the problem of quantization of the phenomenological Maxwell theory, the propagation of quantized radiation through dispersive and absorptive multilayer dielectric plates is studied. Input-output relations are derived, with special emphasis on the determination of the quantum noise generators associated with the absorption of radiation inside the dielectric matter. The input-output relations are used to express arbitrary correlation functions of the outgoing field in terms of correlation functions of the incoming field and those of the noise generators. To illustrate the theory, photons at dielectric tunneling barriers are considered. It is shown that inclusion in the calculations of losses in the photonic band gaps may substantially change the barrier traversal times. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
Using the Green function approach to the problem of quantization of the phenomenological Maxwell theory, the propagation of quantized radiation through dispersive and absorptive multilayer dielectric plates is studied. Input--output relations are derived, with special emphasis on the determination of the quantum noise generators associated with the absorption of radiation inside the dielectric matter. The input--output relations are used to express arbitrary correlation functions of the outgoing field in terms of correlation functions of the incoming field and those of the noise generators. To illustrate the theory, the effect of a single-slab plate on the mean photon-number densities in the frequency domain is discussed in more detail.
The use of instruments in optical experiments needs careful examination with regard to their action on the quantum statistics of radiation. Instruments that respond linearly to radiation may be regarded as spatially structured dielectrics whose presence can be taken into consideration by quantizing the phenomenological Maxwell theory. Since radiation in dielectric matter undergoes dispersion and absorption, the losses must necessarily be included in a quantization scheme. This central problem can be solved by using a novel approach that is based on a Green’s function expansion of the radiation field in place of a mode expansion, which fails when the losses are taken into account. The theory is applied to calculate quantum-theoretically consistent inputoutput relations for dispersive and absorptive multi-slab dielectric plates. Assuming that the polarization field and the electric field are locally related to each other, the phenomenological Maxwell equations governing the propagation of radiation in linear dielectrics, without external sources, can be quantized by supplementing them by an appropriately chosen noise source associated with the losses in the dielectric matter. For the sake of transparency, let us consider a multi-slab dielectric plate with permittivity ε(x, ω) and restrict attention to radiation that propagates along the x axis and is polarized in z direction.
We discuss the quantum fluctuations of the fields associated with a broad class of optical scattering and transmission problems by developing the quantum electrodynamics of an idealized linear, but nonuniform, dielectric medium. We present and compare two quantization schemes for this purpose. The first is based on the expansion of the field in terms of a set of single-frequency solutions of the Maxwell equations. The second involves expanding the field in the set of plane-wave solutions of the Maxwell equations in the vacuum. The relation between the two quantization schemes is discussed in the framework of the scattering theory that connects them. The methods presented are used to show that various field components within a dielectric medium may be either superfluctuant or subfluctuant relative to their fundamental uncertainties in the vacuum. These alterations of the fluctuation properties of the fields are shown to lead to changes in the spontaneous emission rates for both electric and magnetic dipole transitions of excited atoms within or near dielectric media. We also analyze the quantum properties of the transition radiation emitted by a fast charged particle in passing from one dielectric medium to another.
A quantization scheme for the electromagnetic field in absorbing dielectrics developed previously is extended to cover more complicated arrangements of dielectric media and to investigate various limiting cases of the general formalism. The limiting cases include media that have vanishing imaginary parts in their dielectric functions, because either the refractive index or the extinction coefficient vanishes. The further limit of a unit real dielectric function establishes the connection of the formalism with the well-known quantized field expressions in free space. Detailed calculations are presented for the quantization in the system of two different absorbing dielectrics in contact at a plane interface and for the cavity formed in the free space between two separated absorbing dielectrics. The forms of the field operators are determined for both systems, the canonical commutation relations are verified, and the spectra of the vacuum field fluctuations are calculated and illustrated. The calculations are restricted throughout to fields that propagate perpendicular to the dielectric interfaces. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.
The behavior of short quantum light pulses propagating in dispersive and absorbing linear ground-state dielectrics is studied, with special emphasis on squeezed pulses. The analysis is based on normally ordered correlation functions of the electric-field strength, which are related to quantities at the entrance plane, on using quantum Langevin equations. Using nonmonochromatic-mode expansion and restricting attention to a single-mode pulse in a squeezed state, the influence on squeezing of the pulse propagation in the medium is discussed in both the time and frequency domains, and it is shown that the noise reduction observable in homodyne detection sensitively depends on the phase control used. Effects, such as squeezing enhancement associated with pulse compression and the destructive influence of the spectral shift caused by absorption, are demonstrated. The numerical results are supplemented by analytical estimations derived for narrow-bandwidth Gaussian pulses. \textcopyright{} 1996 The American Physical Society.