1205.0486 (S. A. R. Horsley)

Instability of dielectric media to uniform motion    [PDF]

S. A. R. Horsley

We formulate the quantum description of the electromagnetic field in the presence of a linear, dispersive and dissipative medium that is in uniform motion. Specifically we calculate the change in the normal modes of the coupled matter-field system and find a Hamiltonian that is unbounded from below. We interpret this as an instability of dielectrics to relative motion, and find that a detector initially in its ground state, and coupled to the electromagnetic field in the vicinity of, or within a uniformly moving medium has a finite probability of excitation at T = 0 K.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.0486