Spontaneous Photoemission From Metamaterial Junction: A Conjecture

The possibility of spontaneous photon pair emission from a normal material - metamaterial junction is investigated in a quantum field theory setting. We consider a pair of photons arising from vacuum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field close to the junction where one photon each comes from the normal and metamaterial sectors. Mixing between the positive and negative norm photon modes can give rise to spontaneous photoemission, the rate of which is calculated.