Speed-of-light limitations in passive linear media

We prove that well-known speed of light restrictions on electromagnetic energy velocity can be extended to a new level of generality, encompassing even nonlocal chiral media in periodic geometries, while at the same time weakening the underlying assumptions to only passivity and linearity of the medium (either with a transparency window or with dissipation). As was also shown by other authors under more limiting assumptions, passivity alone is sufficient to guarantee causality and positivity of the energy density (with no thermodynamic assumptions). Our proof is general enough to include a very broad range of material properties, including anisotropy, bianisotropy (chirality), nonlocality, dispersion, periodicity, and even delta functions or similar generalized functions. We also show that the "dynamical energy density" used by some previous authors in dissipative media reduces to the standard Brillouin formula for dispersive energy density in a transparency window. The results in this paper are proved by exploiting deep results from linear-response theory, harmonic analysis, and functional analysis that had previously not been brought together in the context of electrodynamics.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur

On the Spectral Theory of Linear Differential-Algebraic Equations with Periodic Coefficients

In this paper, we consider the spectral theory of linear differential-algebraic equations (DAEs) for periodic DAEs in canonical form, i.e., \begin{equation*} J \frac{df}{dt}+Hf=\lambda Wf, \end{equation*} where $J$ is a constant skew-Hermitian $n\times n$ matrix that is not invertible, both $H=H(t)$ and $W=W(t)$ are $d$-periodic Hermitian $n\times n$-matrices with Lebesgue measurable functions as entries, and $W(t)$ is positive semidefinite and invertible for a.e. $t\in \mathbb{R}$ (i.e., Lebesgue almost everywhere). Under some additional hypotheses on $H$ and $W$, called the local index-1 hypotheses, we study the maximal and the minimal operators $L$ and $L_0'$, respectively, associated with the differential-algebraic operator $\mathcal{L}=W^{-1}(J\frac{d}{dt}+H)$, both treated as an unbounded operators in a Hilbert space $L^2(\mathbb{R};W)$ of weighted square-integrable vector-valued functions. We prove the following: (i) the minimal operator $L_0'$ is a densely defined and closable operator; (ii) the maximal operator $L$ is the closure of $L_0'$; (iii) $L$ is a self-adjoint operator on $L^2(\mathbb{R};W)$ with no eigenvalues of finite multiplicity, but may have eigenvalues of infinite multiplicity. As an important application, we show that for 1D photonic crystals with passive lossless media, Maxwell's equations for the electromagnetic fields become, under separation of variables, periodic DAEs in canonical form satisfying our hypotheses so that our spectral theory applies to them (a primary motivation for this paper).Comment: 47 page

Effective operators and their variational principles for discrete electrical network problems

Using a Hilbert space framework inspired by the methods of orthogonal projections and Hodge decompositions, we study a general class of problems (called Z-problems) that arise in effective media theory, especially within the theory of composites, for defining the effective operator. A new and unified approach is developed, based on block operator methods, for obtaining solutions of the Z-problem, formulas for the effective operator in terms of the Schur complement, and associated variational principles (e.g., the Dirichlet and Thomson minimization principles) that lead to upper and lower bounds on the effective operator. In the case of finite-dimensional Hilbert spaces, this allows for a relaxation of the standard hypotheses on positivity and invertibility for the classes of operators usually considered in such problems, by replacing inverses with the Moore-Penrose pseudoinverse. As we develop the theory, we show how it applies to the classical example from the theory of composites on the effective conductivity in the periodic conductivity problem in the continuum (2d and 3d) under the standard hypotheses. After that, we consider the following three important and diverse examples of discrete electrical network problems in which our theory applies under the relaxed hypotheses. First, an operator-theoretic reformulation of the discrete Dirichlet-to-Neumann (DtN) map for an electrical network on a finite linear graph is given and used to relate the DtN map to the effective operator of an associated Z-problem.\ Second, we show how the classical effective conductivity of an electrical network on a finite linear graph is essentially the effective operator of an associated Z-problem. Finally, we consider electrical networks on periodic linear graphs and develop a discrete analog to classical example of the periodic conductivity equation and effective conductivity in the continuum.Comment: 33 pages, 4 figure