Consistency of certain constitutive relations with quantum electromagnetism
arXiv:1106.2178 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.84.063822
Abstract
Recent work by Philbin [1] has provided a Lagrangian theory that establishes a general method for the canonical quantization of the electromagnetic field in any dispersive, lossy, linear dielectric. Working from this theory, we extend the Lagrangian description to reciprocal and non- reciprocal magnetoelectric (bi-anisotropic) media, showing that some versions of the constitutive relations are inconsistent with a real Lagrangian, and hence with quantization. This amounts to a restriction on the magnitude of the magnetoelectric coupling. Moreover from the point of view of quantization, moving media are shown to be fundamentally different from stationary magnetoelectrics, despite the formal similarity in the constitutive relations.
11 pages
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Cited by in corpus (10)
- Macroscopic quantum electrodynamics and duality in non-local and Onsager-violating media
- Canonical quantization of the electromagnetic field interacting with a moving dielectric
- Quantum dynamics of the damped harmonic oscillator
- The influence of chiral spherical particles on the radiation of optically active molecules
- Canonical quantization of macroscopic electrodynamics in a linear, inhomogeneous magneto-electric medium
- Variational principles for dissipative (sub)systems, with applications to the theory of linear dispersion and geometrical optics
- Optical properties and energy propagation in a dielectric medium supporting magnetic current
- Analytical model of a Tellegen meta-atom
- Purcell effect in chiral environments
- Quantised helicity in optical media