An exact property of the nonequilibrium photon Green function for bounded media

Abstract

The nonequilibrium photon Green function for a bounded medium surrounded by vacuum is analyzed on the basis of the Dyson equation. As its components, the field-field fluctuations as well as the spectral function split up into parts related to medium and vacuum. Particularly, it is shown that the vacuum-induced fluctuations describe propagation of arbitrary, even nonclassical light in terms of solutions of the classical wave propagation problem. The results generalize previously obtained ones for steadily excited media in slab geometry.