Mimicking the motion of metallic interfaces with spacetime switching

Inspired by the need of recognizing novel mechanisms to engineer time and spacetime inhomogeneities, we theoretically explore the possibilities of inducing fast temporal changes in the structural dispersion of a one-dimensional parallel-plate cavity. In this work, we delve into the variation of interplate distance not by actual motion of the cavity’s metallic boundaries, but through the effective subluminal synthetic motion that emerges from a judicious switching operation in the metallic region, parameterized as a lossless spacetime-varying plasma. We theoretically show how, depending on the nature of this time-dispersive switching process, different boundary conditions apply, providing richer physics than true motion.