We present a method for the end-to-end optimization of computational imaging systems that reconstruct targets using compressed sensing. Using an adjoint analysis of the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions, we incorporate a fully iterative compressed sensing algorithm that solves an L1-regularized minimization problem, nested within the end-to-end optimization pipeline. We apply this method to jointly optimize the optical and computational parameters of metasurface-based imaging systems for underdetermined recovery problems. This allows us to investigate the interplay of nanoscale optics with the design goals of compressed sensing imaging systems. Our optimized metasurface imaging systems are robust to noise, significantly improving over random scattering surfaces and approaching the ideal compressed sensing performance of a Gaussian matrix.
This note is intended as a brief introduction to the theory and practice of perfectly matched layer (PML) absorbing boundaries for wave equations, originally developed for MIT courses 18.369 and 18.336. It focuses on the complex stretched-coordinate viewpoint, and also discusses the limitations of PML.
We develop a new type of orthogonal polynomial, the modified discrete Laguerre (MDL) polynomials, designed to accelerate the computation of bosonic Matsubara sums in statistical physics. The MDL polynomials lead to a rapidly convergent Gaussian “quadrature” scheme for Matsubara sums, and more generally for any sum F(0)/2+F(h)+F(2h)+... of exponentially decaying summands F(nh)=f(nh)e-nhs where hs>0. We demonstrate this technique for computation of finite-temperature Casimir forces arising from quantum field theory, where evaluation of the summand F requires expensive electromagnetic simulations. A key advantage of our scheme, compared to previous methods, is that the convergence rate is nearly independent of the spacing h (proportional to the thermodynamic temperature). We also prove convergence for any polynomially decaying F.
This technical note describes the physical model, numerical implementation, and validation of multilevel atomic media for lasers and saturable absorbers in Meep: a free/open-source finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) software package for electromagnetics simulation. Simulating multilevel media in the time domain involves coupling rate equations for the populations of electronic energy levels with Maxwell's equations via a generalization of the Maxwell–Bloch equations. We describe the underlying equations and their implementation using a second-order discretization scheme, and also demonstrate their equivalence to a quantum density-matrix model. The Meep implementation is validated using a separate FDTD density-matrix model as well as a frequency-domain solver based on steady-state ab-initio laser theory (SALT).
We demonstrate neural-network runtime prediction for complex, many-parameter, massively parallel, heterogeneous-physics simulations running on cloud-based MPI clusters. Because individual simulations are so expensive, it is crucial to train the network on a limited dataset despite the potentially large input space of the physics at each point in the spatial domain. We achieve this using a two-part strategy. First, we perform data-driven static load balancing using regression coefficients extracted from small simulations, which both improves parallel performance and reduces the dependency of the runtime on the precise spatial layout of the heterogeneous physics. Second, we divide the execution time of these load-balanced simulations into computation and communication, factoring crude asymptotic scalings out of each term, and training neural nets for the remaining factor coefficients. This strategy is implemented for Meep, a popular and complex open-source electrodynamics simulation package, and are validated for heterogeneous simulations drawn from published engineering models.
In this technical note, we explain how to construct Gaussian quadrature rules for efficiently and accurately computing integrals of the form ∫S(λ)f(λ)dλ where S(λ) is the solar irradiance function tabulated in the ASTM standard and f(λ) is an arbitary application-specific smooth function. This allows the integral to be computed accurately with a relatively small number of f(λ) evaluations despite the fact that S(λ) is non-smooth and wildly oscillatory. Julia software is provided to compute solar-weighted quadrature rules for an arbitrary bandwidth or number of points. We expect that this technique will be useful in solar-energy calculations, where f(λ) is often a computationally expensive function such as an absorbance calculated by solving Maxwell's equations.
We present new theoretical tools, based on fluctuational electrodynamics and the integral-equation approach to computational electromagnetism, for numerical modeling of forces and torques on bodies of complex shapes and materials due to emission of thermal radiation out of thermal equilibrium. This extends our recently-developed fluctuating-surface-current (FSC) and fluctuating-volume-current (FVC) techniques for radiative heat transfer to the computation of non-equilibrium fluctuation-induced forces and torques; as we show, the extension is non-trivial due to the greater computational cost of modeling radiative momentum transfer, including new singularities that must be carefully neutralized. We introduce a new analytical cancellation technique that addresses these challenges and allows, for the first time, accurate and efficient prediction of non-equilibrium forces and torques on bodies of essentially arbitrary shapes—including asymmetric and chiral particles—and complex material properties, including continuously-varying and anisotropic dielectrics. We validate our approach by showing that it reproduces known results, then present new numerical predictions of non-equilibrium self-propulsion, self-rotation, and momentum-transfer phenomena in complex geometries that would be difficult or impossible to study with existing methods. Our findings indicate that the fluctuation-induced dynamics of micron-size room-temperature bodies in cold environments involve microscopic length scales but macroscopic time scales, with typical linear and angular velocities on the order of microns/second and radians/second; For a micron-scale gear driven by thermal radiation from a nearby chiral emitter, we find a strong and non-monotonic dependence of the magnitude and even the sign of the induced torque on the temperature of the emitter.
We present an algorithm to compute the Jordan chain of a nearly defective matrix with a 2×2 Jordan block. The algorithm is based on a inverse-iteration procedure and only needs information about the invariant subspace corresponding to the Jordan chain, making it suitable for use with large matrices arising in applications, in contrast with existing algorithms which rely on an SVD. The algorithm produces the eigenvector and Jordan vector with O(ε) error, with ε being the distance of the given matrix to an exactly defective matrix. As an example, we demonstrate the use of this algorithm in a problem arising from electromagnetism, in which the matrix has size 2122×2122. An extension of this algorithm is also presented which can achieve higher order convergence [O(ε2)] when the matrix derivative is known.
We present shape-independent upper limits to the power–bandwidth product for a single resonance in an optical scatterer, with the bound depending only on the material susceptibility. We show that quasistatic metallic scatterers can nearly reach the limits, and we apply our approach to the problem of designing N independent, subwavelength scatterers to achieve flat, broadband response even if they individually exhibit narrow resonant peaks.
This technical note describes the application of saddle-point integration to the asymptotic Fourier analysis of the well-known C∞ “bump” function exp[-(1-x2)-1], deriving both the asymptotic decay rate k-3/4 exp(-sqrt(k)) of the Fourier transform F(k) and the exact coefficient. The result is checked against brute-force numerical integration and is extended to generalizations of this bump function.
Mühlig et. al. propose and fabricate a “cloak” comprised of nano-particles on the surface of a sub-wavelength silica sphere. However, the coating only reduces the scattered fields. This is achieved by increased absorption, such that total extinction increases at all wavelengths. An object creating a large shadow is generally not considered to be cloaked; functionally, in contrast to the relatively few structures that can reduce total extinction, there are many that can reduce scattering alone.
We extend a previous result [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 090403 (2010)] on Casimir repulsion between a plate with a hole and a cylinder centered above it to geometries in which the central object can no longer be treated as a point dipole. We show through numerical calculations that as the distance between the plate and central object decreases, there is an intermediate regime in which the repulsive force increases dramatically. Beyond this, the force rapidly switches over to attraction as the separation decreases further to zero, in line with the proximity force approximation. We demonstrate that this effect can be understood as a competition between an increased repulsion due to a larger polarizability of the central object interacting with increased fringing fields near the edge of the plate, and attractive forces due primarily to the nonzero thickness of the plate. In comparison with our previous work, we find that using the same plate geometry but replacing the single cylinder with a ring of cylinders, or more generally an extended uniaxial conductor, the repulsive force can be enhanced by a factor of approximately 103. We conclude that this enhancement, although quite dramatic, is still too small to yield detectable repulsive Casimir forces.
We compare several methods for the efficient generation of correlated random sequences (colored noise) by filtering white noise to achieve a desired correlation spectrum. We argue that a class of IIR filter-design techniques developed in the 1970s, which obtain the global Chebyshev-optimum minimum-phase filter with a desired magnitude and arbitrary phase, are uniquely suited for this problem but have seldom been used. The short filters that result from such techniques are crucial for applications of colored noise in physical simulations involving random processes, for which many long random sequences must be generated and computational time and memory are at a premium.
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