Resonant-state expansion of dispersive open optical systems: Creating gold from sand

A resonant-state expansion (RSE) for open optical systems with a general frequency dispersion of the permittivity is presented. The RSE of dispersive systems converts Maxwell's wave equation into a linear matrix eigenvalue problem in the basis of unperturbed resonant states, in this way numerically exactly determining all relevant eigenmodes of the optical system. The dispersive RSE is verified by application to the analytically solvable system of a sphere in vacuum, with a dispersion of the permittivity described by the Drude and Drude-Lorentz models. We calculate the optical modes converting the sphere material from gold to nondispersive sand and back to gold, and evaluate the accuracy using exact solutions.