Electromagnetic fields between moving mirrors: singular waveforms inside Doppler cavities

Abstract

Phenomena of wave propagation in dynamically varying structures have reemerged as the temporal variations of the medium’s properties can extend the possibilities for electromagnetic wave manipulation. While the dynamical change of the electromagnetic medium’s properties is a difficult task, the movement of scatterers is not. In this paper, we analyze the electromagnetic fields trapped inside two smoothly moving mirrors. We employ the method of characteristics and take into account the relativistic phenomena to show that the temporally and spatially local Doppler effects can filter and amplify the electromagnetic signal, tailoring the k − and ω −content of the transients. It is shown using the Doppler factor and the change of the distance between neighbor characteristics that the dynamical movement of the boundaries can lead to condensation or dilution of characteristics resulting in field amplification or attenuation, respectively. In the case of periodically moving mirrors the field distribution is shown that asymptotically leads to exponentially growing delta-like wave packets at discrete points of space with a limiting number of peaks due to the fact that the velocity of the mechanical vibrations cannot exceed that of light. The theoretical analysis is also verified by FDTD simulations and is connected with the theory of mode locking.