Superluminal Pulses from a Detection-Theoretic Point of View

Levent Kayili

The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering (Electromagnetics)

Abstract:

There has been recent interest in electromagnetic pulses propagating at superluminal (faster-than-light) velocities. Yet, there has also been confusion about which velocity is superluminal. Surely, it could not be the information velocity that exceeds the speed of light in vacuum or else Einstein causality would be violated. It is, in fact, the group velocity that can be superluminal or even negative and this fact has been demonstrated in experiments at microwave and optical frequencies as well as in the single-photon limit. Knowing that superluminal information propagation remains impossible, we would like to explore the practical usefulness of superluminal or negative group velocities from a detection theoretic point of view. We will start with microelectronic circuits and proceed toward optical media for this analysis.

Biography:

Levent Kayili received his B.A.Sc. degree in electrical engineering from the University of Waterloo in 2007. Currently, he is an M.A.Sc. candidate in the electromagnetics group. His research interests include the detection theoretic analysis of superluminal and negative group delays/velocities for microelectronic circuits as well as optical media.