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Macroscopic Maxwell's equations and negative index materials

We study the linear phenomenological Maxwell's equations in the presence of a polarizable and magnetizable medium (magnetodielectric). For a dispersive, non-absorptive, medium with equal electric and magnetic permeabilities, the latter can assume the value -1 (+1 is their vacuum value) for a discrete set of frequencies, i.e., for these frequencies the medium behaves as a negative index material (NIM). We show that such systems have a well-defined time evolution. In particular the fields remain square integrable (and the electromagnetic energy finite) if this is the case at some initial time. Next we turn to the Green's function (a tensor), associated with the electric Helmholtz operator, for a set of parallel layers filled with a material. We express it in terms of the well-known scalar s and p ones. For a half space filled with the material and with a single dispersive Lorentz form for both electric and magnetic permeabilities we obtain an explicit form for the Green's function. We find the usual behavior for negative index materials, there is no refection outside the evanescent regime and the transmission (refraction) shows the usual NIM behavior. We find that the Green's function has poles, which lead to a modulation of the radiative decay probability of an excited atom. The formalism is free from ambiguities in the sign of the refractive index.