Surface plasmons in metamaterial cavities: Scattering by obstacles with negative wave speed

Abstract

We study scattering by metamaterials with negative indices of refraction, which are known to support \emph{surface plasmons} -- long-lived states that are highly localized at the boundary of the cavity. This type of states has found uses in a variety of modern technologies. In this article, we study surface plasmons in the setting of non-trapping cavities; i.e. when all billiard trajectories outside the cavity escape to infinity. We characterize the indices of refraction which support surface plasmons, show that the corresponding resonances lie super-polynomially close to the real axis, describe the localization properties of the corresponding resonant states, and give an asymptotic formula for their number.