Pseudo-Hermiticity and electromagnetic wave propagation in dispersive media

Pseudo-Hermitian operators appear in the solution of Maxwell's equations for stationary non-dispersive media with arbitrary (space-dependent) permittivity and permeability tensors. We offer an extension of the results in this direction to certain stationary dispersive media. In particular, we use the WKB approximation to derive an explicit expression for the planar time-harmonic solutions of Maxwell's equations in an inhomogeneous dispersive medium and study the combined effect of inhomogeneity and dispersion. (C) 2010 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.