An Algebraic Approach to Light–Matter Interactions

Abstract

A theoretical and computational framework for the study and engineering of light–matter interactions is reviewed in here. The framework rests on the invariance properties of electromagnetism, and is formalized in a Hilbert space whose conformally invariant scalar product provides connections to physical quantities, such as the energy or momentum of a given field, or the outcome of measurements. The light–matter interaction is modeled by the polychromatic scattering operator, which establishes a natural connection to a popular computational formalism, the transition matrix, or T‐matrix. This review contains a succinct yet comprehensive description of the main theoretical ideas, and illustrates some of the practical benefits of the approach.