Quantum electrodynamics of lossy magnetodielectric samples in vacuum: modified Langevin noise formalism

Abstract

Quantum behavior of the electromagnetic field in unbounded macroscopic media displaying absorption is properly described by the Langevin noise formalism (macroscopic quantum electrodynamics) where the field is assumed to be entirely produced by medium fluctuating sources via the dyadic Green's function. On the other hand, such formalism is able to deal with the case of finite-size lossy objects placed in vacuum only as a limiting situation where the permittivity limit ${\rm Im} ( \varepsilon) \rightarrow 0^+$ pertaining the regions filled by vacuum is taken at the end of the calculations. Strictly setting ${\rm Im} ( \varepsilon) =0$ is forbidden in the Langevin noise formalism since the field would vanish in the lossless regions and this is physically due to the fact that the contribution of the scattering modes to the field is not separated from the contribution produced by the medium fluctuating sources. Recently, a modified Langevin noise formalism has been proposed to encompass the scattering modes and accordingly it is able to describe the structured lossless situations by strictly setting ${\rm Im} (\varepsilon) = 0$. However such modified formalism has been numerically validated only in few specific geometries. In this paper we analytically derive the modified Langevin noise formalism from the established canonical quantization of the electromagnetic field in macroscopic media, thus proving that it models any possible scenario involving linear, inhomegeneous and magnetodielectric samples. The derivation starts from quantum Maxwell equations in the Heisenberg picture together with their formal solution as the superposition of the medium assisted field and the scattering modes. We analytically prove that each of the two field parts can be expressed in term of particular bosonic operators, which in turn diagonalize the electromagnetic Hamiltonian.