Pseudo-Hermiticity and electromagnetic wave propagation: the case of anisotropic and lossy media

Abstract

Pseudo-Hermitian operators can be used in modeling electromagnetic wave propagation in stationary lossless media. We extend this method to a class of non-dispersive anisotropic media that may display loss or gain. We explore three concrete models to demonstrate the utility of our general results and reveal the physical meaning of pseudo-Hermiticity and quasi-Hermiticity of the relevant wave operator. In particular, we consider a uniaxial model where this operator is not diagonalizable. This implies left-handedness of the medium in the sense that only clockwise circularly polarized plane-wave solutions are bounded functions of time.