Imaging polarizable dipoles

We present a method for imaging the polarization vector of an electric dipole distribution in a homogeneous medium from measurements of the electric field made at a passive array. We study an electromagnetic version of Kirchhoff imaging and prove, in the Fraunhofer asymptotic regime, that range and cross-range resolution estimates are identical to those in acoustics. Our asymptotic analysis provides error estimates for the cross-range dipole orientation reconstruction and shows that the range component of the dipole orientation is lost in this regime. A naive generalization of the Kirchhoff imaging function is afflicted by oscillatory artifacts in range, that we characterize and correct. We also consider the active imaging problem which consists in imaging both the position and polarizability tensors of small scatterers in the medium using an array of collocated sources and receivers. As in the passive array case, we provide resolution estimates that are consistent with the acoustic case and give error estimates for the cross-range entries of the polarizability tensor. Our theoretical results are illustrated by numerical experiments.Comment: 35 pages, 18 figure

Mathematical models for dispersive electromagnetic waves: an overview

In this work, we investigate mathematical models for electromagnetic wave propagation in dispersive isotropic media. We emphasize the link between physical requirements and mathematical properties of the models. A particular attention is devoted to the notion of non-dissipativity and passivity. We consider successively the case of so-called local media and general passive media. The models are studied through energy techniques, spectral theory and dispersion analysis of plane waves. For making the article self-contained, we provide in appendix some useful mathematical background.Comment: 46 pages, 16 figure

Truth and Consequences

International audienc

High contrast elliptic operators in honeycomb structures

We study the band structure of self-adjoint elliptic operators $\mathbb{A}_g= -\nabla \cdot \sigma_{g} \nabla$, where $\sigma_g$ has the symmetries of a honeycomb tiling of $\mathbb{R}^2$. We focus on the case where $\sigma_{g}$ is a real-valued scalar: $\sigma_{g}=1$ within identical, disjoint "inclusions", centered at vertices of a honeycomb lattice, and $\sigma_{g}=g \gg1$ (high contrast) in the complement of the inclusion set (bulk). Such operators govern, e.g. transverse electric (TE) modes in photonic crystal media consisting of high dielectric constant inclusions (semi-conductor pillars) within a homogeneous lower contrast bulk (air), a configuration used in many physical studies. Our approach, which is based on monotonicity properties of the associated energy form, extends to a class of high contrast elliptic operators that model heterogeneous and anisotropic honeycomb media. Our results concern the global behavior of dispersion surfaces, and the existence of conical crossings (Dirac points) occurring in the lowest two energy bands as well as in bands arbitrarily high in the spectrum. Dirac points are the source of important phenomena in fundamental and applied physics, e.g. graphene and its artificial analogues, and topological insulators. The key hypotheses are the non-vanishing of the Dirac (Fermi) velocity $v_D(g)$, verified numerically, and a spectral isolation condition, verified analytically in many configurations. Asymptotic expansions, to any order in $g^{-1}$, of Dirac point eigenpairs and $v_D(g)$ are derived with error bounds. Our study illuminates differences between the high contrast behavior of $\mathbb{A}_g$ and the corresponding strong binding regime for Schroedinger operators.Comment: 63 pages, 13 figure

Space-time focusing of acoustic waves on unknown scatterers

International audienceConsider a propagative medium, possibly inhomogeneous, containing some scatterers whose positions are unknown. Using an array of transmit-receive transducers, how can one generate a wave that would focus in space and time near one of the scatterers, that is, a wave whose energy would confine near the scatterer during a short time? The answer proposed in the present paper is based on the so-called DORT method (French acronym for: decomposition of the time reversal operator) which has led to numerous applications owing to the related space-focusing properties in the frequency domain, i.e., for time-harmonic waves. This method essentially consists in a singular value decomposition (SVD) of the scattering operator, that is, the operator which maps the input signals sent to the transducers to the measure of the scattered wave. By introducing a particular SVD related to the symmetry of the scattering operator, we show how to synchronize the time-harmonic signals derived from the DORT method to achieve space-time focusing. We consider the case of the scalar wave equation and we make use of an asymptotic model for small sound-soft scatterers, usually called the Foldy-Lax model. In this context, several mathematical and numerical arguments that support our idea are explored

Active Thermal Cloaking and Mimicking

We present an active cloaking method for the parabolic heat (and mass or light diffusion) equation that can hide both objects and sources. By active we mean that it relies on designing monopole and dipole heat source distributions on the boundary of the region to be cloaked. The same technique can be used to make a source or an object look like a different one to an observer outside the cloaked region, from the perspective of thermal measurements. Our results assume a homogeneous isotropic bulk medium and require knowledge of the source to cloak or mimic, but are in most cases independent of the object to cloak.Comment: 29 pages,12 figure

Long time behaviour of the solution of Maxwell's equations in dissipative generalized Lorentz materials (I) A frequency dependent Lyapunov function approach

It is well-known that electromagnetic dispersive structures such as metamaterials can be modelled by generalized Drude-Lorentz models. The present paper is the first of two articles dedicated to dissipative generalized Drude-Lorentz open structures. We wish to quantify the loss in such media in terms of the long time decay rate of the electromagnetic energy for the corresponding Cauchy problem. By using an approach based on frequency dependent Lyapounov estimates, we show that this decay is polynomial in time. These results extend to an unbounded structure the ones obtained for bounded media in [18] via a quite different method based on the notion of cumulated past history and semi-group theory. A great advantage of the approach developed here is to be less abstract and directly connected to the physics of the system via energy balances