Resonance interaction of two dipoles in optically active surroundings

TL;DR

This paper investigates how optically active environments influence the resonance interaction between two quantum dipoles, revealing that optical activity can enable resonance interactions that do not occur in vacuum.

Contribution

It demonstrates that optically active surroundings can induce resonance interactions between orthogonal dipoles, a phenomenon absent in vacuum, advancing understanding of dipole interactions in complex media.

Findings

Optically active surroundings do not alter single dipole behavior.

Optical activity significantly affects collective dipole behaviors.

Resonance interaction can be enabled between orthogonal dipoles in such environments.

Abstract

We study the resonance interaction between two quantum electric dipoles immersed in optically active surroundings. Quantum electrodynamics is employed to deal with dipole-vacuum interaction. Our results show that the optical activity of surroundings will not change the single atom behaviors while it can change the collective behaviors of the two dipoles, as well as greatly affect the dipole-dipole resonance interaction. Especially, if the orientations of two dipoles are orthogonal and respectively perpendicular to the interdipole axis, the interdipole resonance interaction can be established with the help of optically active surroundings while there is no resonance interaction in vacuum.