Quantum theory of multimode fields: Applications to optical resonators

Carlos Viviescas, Gregor Hackenbroich

Published 2003-10-13, updated 2004-02-24Version 2

A recently developed technique for the system--and--bath quantization of open optical cavities is applied to three resonator geometries: A one dimensional dielectric, a Fabry--Perot resonator, and a dielectric disk. The system--and--bath Hamiltonian for these geometries is derived starting from Maxwell's equations and employed to compute the electromagnetic fields, the resonances, and the cavity gain factors. Exact agreement is found with standard quantization methods based on a modes--of--the--universe description. Our analysis provides a microscopic justification for the system--and--bath quantization even in the regime of spectrally overlapping modes.