Charge and Current Sum Rules in Quantum Media Coupled to Radiation

This paper concerns the equilibrium bulk charge and current density correlation functions in quantum media, conductors and dielectrics, fully coupled to the radiation (the retarded regime). A sequence of static and time-dependent sum rules, which fix the values of certain moments of the charge and current density correlation functions, is obtained by using Rytov's fluctuational electrodynamics. A technique is developed to extract the classical and purely quantum-mechanical parts of these sum rules. The sum rules are critically tested in the classical limit and on the jellium model. A comparison is made with microscopic approaches to systems of particles interacting through Coulomb forces only (the non-retarded regime). In contrast with microscopic results, the current-current correlation function is found to be integrable in space, in both classical and quantum regimes.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur

Nonuniversal correlations in multiple scattering

We show that intensity of a wave created by a source embedded inside a three-dimensional disordered medium exhibits a non-universal space-time correlation which depends explicitly on the short-distance properties of disorder, source size, and dynamics of disorder in the immediate neighborhood of the source. This correlation has an infinite spatial range and is long-ranged in time. We suggest that a technique of "diffuse microscopy" might be developed employing spatially-selective sensitivity of the considered correlation to the disorder properties.Comment: 15 pages, 3 postscript figures, accepted to Phys. Rev.

Gravitational Faraday rotation in a weak gravitational field

We examine the rotation of the plane of polarization for linearly polarized light rays by the weak gravitational field of an isolated physical system. Based on the rotation of inertial frames, we review the general integral expression for the net rotation. We apply this formula, analogue to the usual electromagnetic Faraday effect, to some interesting astrophysical systems: uniformly shifting mass monopoles and a spinning external shell.Comment: 10 pages; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Electromagnetic field correlations near a surface with a nonlocal optical response

The coherence length of the thermal electromagnetic field near a planar surface has a minimum value related to the nonlocal dielectric response of the material. We perform two model calculations of the electric energy density and the field's degree of spatial coherence. Above a polar crystal, the lattice constant gives the minimum coherence length. It also gives the upper limit to the near field energy density, cutting off its $1/z^3$ divergence. Near an electron plasma described by the semiclassical Lindhard dielectric function, the corresponding length scale is fixed by plasma screening to the Thomas-Fermi length. The electron mean free path, however, sets a larger scale where significant deviations from the local description are visible.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure files (.eps), \documentclass[global]{svjour}, accepted in special issue "Optics on the Nanoscale" (Applied Physics B, eds. V. Shalaev and F. Tr\"ager

Thermal correction to the Casimir force, radiative heat transfer, and an experiment

The low-temperature asymptotic expressions for the Casimir interaction between two real metals described by Leontovich surface impedance are obtained in the framework of thermal quantum field theory. It is shown that the Casimir entropy computed using the impedance of infrared optics vanishes in the limit of zero temperature. By contrast, the Casimir entropy computed using the impedance of the Drude model attains at zero temperature a positive value which depends on the parameters of a system, i.e., the Nernst heat theorem is violated. Thus, the impedance of infrared optics withstands the thermodynamic test, whereas the impedance of the Drude model does not. We also perform a phenomenological analysis of the thermal Casimir force and of the radiative heat transfer through a vacuum gap between real metal plates. The characterization of a metal by means of the Leontovich impedance of the Drude model is shown to be inconsistent with experiment at separations of a few hundred nanometers. A modification of the impedance of infrared optics is suggested taking into account relaxation processes. The power of radiative heat transfer predicted from this impedance is several times less than previous predictions due to different contributions from the transverse electric evanescent waves. The physical meaning of low frequencies in the Lifshitz formula is discussed. It is concluded that new measurements of radiative heat transfer are required to find out the adequate description of a metal in the theory of electromagnetic fluctuations.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures. svjour.cls is used, to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

Temporal fluctuations of waves in weakly nonlinear disordered media

We consider the multiple scattering of a scalar wave in a disordered medium with a weak nonlinearity of Kerr type. The perturbation theory, developed to calculate the temporal autocorrelation function of scattered wave, fails at short correlation times. A self-consistent calculation shows that for nonlinearities exceeding a certain threshold value, the multiple-scattering speckle pattern becomes unstable and exhibits spontaneous fluctuations even in the absence of scatterer motion. The instability is due to a distributed feedback in the system "coherent wave + nonlinear disordered medium". The feedback is provided by the multiple scattering. The development of instability is independent of the sign of nonlinearity.Comment: RevTeX, 15 pages (including 5 figures), accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.