Perturbative photon production in a dispersive medium

Abstract

We investigate photon pair-creation in a dispersive dielectric medium induced by the presence of a spacetime varying dielectric constant. Our aim is to examine the possibility to observe new phenomena of pair creation induced by travelling dielectric perturbations e.g. created by laser pulses by means of the Kerr effect. In this perspective, we adopt a semi-phenomenological version of the Hopfield model in which a space-time dependent dielectric susceptibility appears. We focus our attention on perturbation theory, and provide general formulas for the photon production induced by a local but arbitrarily spacetime dependent refractive index perturbation. As an example, we further explore the case of an uniformly travelling perturbation, and provide examples of purely time-dependent perturbations.