Electromagnetic fields between moving mirrors: Singular waveforms inside Doppler cavities

TL;DR

This paper investigates electromagnetic wave behavior inside two moving mirrors, revealing how relativistic Doppler effects can filter, amplify, or attenuate signals, leading to unique waveforms like delta-like packets, supported by theoretical analysis and simulations.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of electromagnetic fields in moving mirror cavities, incorporating relativistic effects and demonstrating the formation of singular waveforms and signal amplification.

Findings

Doppler effects can filter and amplify electromagnetic signals.

Moving boundaries can produce delta-like wave packets.

Theoretical results are validated by FDTD simulations.

Abstract

Phenomena of wave propagation in dynamically varying structures have reemerged as the temporal variations of the medium's properties can extend the possibilities for electromagnetic wave manipulation. While the dynamical change of the electromagnetic medium's properties is a difficult task, the movement of scatterers is not. In this paper, we analyze the electromagnetic fields trapped inside two smoothly moving mirrors. We employ the method of characteristics and take into account the relativistic phenomena to show that the temporally and spatially local Doppler effects can filter and amplify the electromagnetic signal, tailoring the $k-$ and $\omega-$content of the transients. It is shown using the Doppler factor and the change of the distance between neighbor characteristics that the dynamical movement of the boundaries can lead to condensated characteristics resulting in field amplification or dilution of the characteristics resulting in the attenuation of the signal. In the case of periodically moving mirrors the field distribution is shown that asymptotically leads to exponentially growing delta-like wave packets at discrete points of space with a limiting number of peaks due to the fact that the velocity of the mechanical vibrations can not exceed that of light. The theoretical analysis is also verified by FDTD simulations and is connected with the theory of mode locking.