Hamiltonian treatment of time dispersive and dissipative media within the linear response theory

We develop a Hamiltonian theory for a time dispersive and dissipative (TDD) inhomogeneous medium, as described by a linear response equation respecting causality and power dissipation. The canonical Hamiltonian constructed here exactly reproduces the original dissipative evolution after integrating out auxiliary fields. In particular, for a dielectric medium we obtain a simple formula for the Hamiltonian and closed form expressions for the energy density and energy flux involving the auxiliary fields. The developed approach also allows to treat a long standing problem of scattering from a lossy non-spherical obstacle and, more generally, wave propagation in TDD media. (c) 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.