The self-adjoint toroidal dipole operator in nanostructures

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that the quantum toroidal dipole operator in systems with cylindrical symmetry is self-adjoint and observable, providing analytical and numerical insights into its properties and implications for quantum systems and metamaterials.

Contribution

It introduces a self-adjoint formulation of the quantum toroidal dipole operator in cylindrical systems, enabling its physical observability and potential applications in quantum metamaterials.

Findings

The toroidal dipole operator is shown to be self-adjoint in certain coordinates.

Eigenfunctions and eigenvalues of the Hamiltonian and toroidal dipole are numerically obtained.

The results suggest new possibilities for quantum metamaterials exploiting toroidal moments.

Abstract

The parity violation in nuclear reactions led to the discovery of the new class of toroidal multipoles. Since then, it was observed that toroidal multipoles are present in the electromagnetic structure of systems at all scales, from elementary particles, to solid state systems and metamaterials. The toroidal dipole ${\bf T}$ (the lowest order multipole) is the most common. In quantum systems, this corresponds to the toroidal dipole operator $\hat{\bf T}$, with the projections $\hat{T}_i$ ($i=1,2,3$) on the coordinate axes. Here we analyze a quantum particle in a system with cylindrical symmetry, which is a typical system in which toroidal moments appear. We find the expressions for the Hamiltonian, momenta, and toroidal dipole operators in adequate curvilinear coordinates, which allow us to find analytical expressions for the eigenfunctions of the momentum operators. While the toroidal dipole is hermitian, it is not self-adjoint, but in the new set of coordinates the operator $\hat{T}_3$ splits into two components, one of which is (only) hermitian, whereas the other one is self-adjoint. The self-adjoint component is the one that is physically significant and represents an observable. Furthermore, we numerically diagonalize the Hamiltonian and the toroidal dipole operator and find their eigenfunctions and eigenvalues. We write the partition function and calculate the thermodynamic quantities for a system of ideal particles on a torus. Besides proving that the toroidal dipole is self-adjoint and therefore an observable (a finding of fundamental relevance) such systems open up the possibility of making metamaterials that exploit the quantization and the quantum properties of the toroidal dipoles.