Absorption of light is directly associated with dissipative processes in a material. In suitably tailored resonators, a specific level of dissipation can support coherent perfect absorption, the time-reversed analogue of lasing, which enables total absorption and zero scattering in open cavities. On the contrary, the scattering zeros of lossless objects strictly occur at complex frequencies. While usually considered nonphysical due to their divergent response in time, these zeros play a crucial role in the overall scattering dispersion. Here, we introduce the concept of coherent virtual absorption, accessing these modes by temporally shaping the incident waveform. We show that engaging these complex zeros enables storing and releasing the electromagnetic energy at will within a lossless structure for arbitrary amounts of time, under the control of the impinging field. The effect is robust with respect to inevitable material dissipation and can be realized in systems with any number of input ports. The observed effect may have important implications for flexible control of light propagation and storage, low-energy memory, and optical modulation.

中文翻译：

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基于复零激发的相干虚拟吸收，可实现理想的光捕获

光的吸收与材料中的耗散过程直接相关。在适当定制的谐振器中，特定的耗散水平可以支持相干的完美吸收，这是时间反转的激光模拟，可以实现总吸收，并在开放腔中实现零散射。相反，无损物体的散射零点严格地出现在复杂的频率上。尽管通常归因于它们在时间上的发散响应而被认为是非物理的，但这些零在总体散射色散中起着至关重要的作用。在这里，我们介绍了相干虚拟吸收的概念，通过对入射波形进行时间整形来访问这些模式。我们证明了利用这些复零可以在任意时间量内在无损结构内随意存储和释放电磁能，在撞击场的控制之下。相对于不可避免的材料耗散，这种效果是可靠的，并且可以在具有任意数量输入端口的系统中实现。观察到的效果可能对光传播和存储，低能量存储和光调制的灵活控制具有重要意义。