Position-dependent photon operators in the quantization of the electromagnetic field in dielectrics at local thermal equilibrium

TL;DR

This paper investigates how position-dependent photon operators affect the quantization of electromagnetic fields in dielectrics at local thermal equilibrium, revealing oscillatory local temperature distributions that depend on position and photon energy.

Contribution

It introduces a position-dependent photon operator framework and analyzes local temperature oscillations in layered dielectric structures.

Findings

Local photon temperatures oscillate with position and photon energy.

Oscillations occur in both lossless and lossy media.

Understanding these effects could improve thermometry and optical noise control.

Abstract

It has very recently been suggested that asymmetric coupling of electromagnetic fields to thermal reservoirs under nonequilibrium conditions can produce unexpected oscillatory behavior in the local photon statistics in layered structures. Better understanding of the predicted phenomena could enable useful applications related to thermometry, noise filtering, and enhancing optical interactions. In this work we briefly review the field quantization and study the local steady state temperature distributions in optical cavities formed of lossless and lossy media to show that also local field temperatures exhibit oscillations that depend on position as well as the photon energy.