Quantum Electrodynamics with Time-Varying Dielectrics

Fundamental advances in photonics have enabled the development of exotic meta-materials, epsilon-near-zero materials, atomic mirrors and photonic crystals which can form dielectric media with time-varying optical properties. We develop a general formalism to describe quantum electrodynamic (QED) effects in the presence of such time-varying dielectrics, following the Huttner-Barnett model for canonical quantization of electromagnetic fields in dielectric media. Considering a microscopic model for the dielectric as a collection of matter fields interacting with the electromagnetic environment, we allow for the possibility of dynamically varying the dielectric susceptibility and develop constraints on the temporal dependence of the susceptibility. The analysis is then extended to develop a macroscopic QED formalism for time-varying dielectrics. Our results pave the way for investigating a wide range of QED phenomena in the vicinity of time-varying dielectrics.