Equilibrium long-ranged charge correlations at the surface of a conductor coupled to the electromagnetic radiation

Abstract

This study is related to the fluctuation theory of electromagnetic fields, charges and currents. The three-dimensional system under consideration is a semi-infinite conductor, modeled by the jellium, in vacuum. In previous theoretical studies it was found that the correlation functions of the surface charge density on the conductor decay as the inverse cube of the distance at asymptotically large distances. The prefactor to this asymptotic decay was obtained in the classical limit and in the quantum case without retardation effects. To describe the retarded regime, we study a more general problem of the semi-infinite jellium in thermal equilibrium with the radiated electromagnetic field. By using Rytov's fluctuational electrodynamics we show that, for both static and time-dependent surface charge correlation functions, the inclusion of retardation effects causes the quantum prefactor to take its universal static classical form, for any temperature.

11 pages, 2 figures

References in corpus (5)

• Theory of surface plasmons and surface-plasmon polaritons
• Surface Electromagnetic Waves Thermally Excited: Radiative Heat Transfer, Coherence Properties and Casimir Forces Revisited in the Near Field
• Classical Coulomb Systems:Screening and Correlations Revisited
• A theory of electromagnetic fluctuations for metallic surfaces and van der Waals interactions between metallic bodies
• Microscopic Calculation of the Dielectric Susceptibility Tensor for Coulomb Fluids II

Cited by in corpus (5)

• Magnetic near fields as a probe of charge transport in spatially dispersive conductors
• Equilibrium long-ranged charge correlations at the surface of a conductor coupled to the electromagnetic radiation II
• Charge and Current Sum Rules in Quantum Media Coupled to Radiation II
• Equilibrium long-ranged charge correlations at the interface between media coupled to the electromagnetic radiation
• Charge and Current Sum Rules in Quantum Media Coupled to Radiation