General Theory of Spontaneous Emission Near Exceptional Points
Abstract
We present a general theory of spontaneous emission at exceptional points (EPs)---exotic degeneracies in non-Hermitian systems. Our theory extends beyond spontaneous emission to any light--matter interaction described by the local density of states (e.g., absorption, thermal emission, and nonlinear frequency conversion). Whereas traditional spontaneous-emission theories imply infinite enhancement factors at EPs, we derive finite bounds on the enhancement, proving maximum enhancement of 4 in passive systems with second-order EPs and significantly larger enhancements (exceeding ) in gain-aided and higher-order EP systems. In contrast to non-degenerate resonances, EPs are associated with non-Lorentzian emission curves, leading to enhancements that scale polynomially with the resonance quality factor.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1604.06478,
title = {General Theory of Spontaneous Emission Near Exceptional Points},
author = {Adi Pick and Bo Zhen and Owen D. Miller and Chia W. Hsu and Felipe Hernandez and Alejandro W. Rodriguez and Marin Soljacic and Steven G. Johnson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1604.06478},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
15 pages, 7 figures