Dispersive interactions between atoms and nonplanar surfaces
We calculate the dispersive force between a ground state atom and a non planar surface. We present explicit results for a corrugated surface, derived from the scattering approach at first order in the corrugation amplitude. A variety of analytical results are derived in different limiting cases, including the van der Waals and Casimir-Polder regimes. We compute numerically the exact first-order dispersive potential for arbitrary separation distances and corrugation wavelengths, for a Rubidium atom on top of a silicon or gold corrugated surface. We discuss in detail the inadequacy of the proximity force approximation, and present a simple but adequate approximation for computing the potentia…
Short-range fundamental forces
Abstract We consider theoretical motivations to search for extra short-range fundamental forces as well as experiments constraining their parameters. The forces could be of two types: 1) spin-independent forces; 2) spin-dependent axion-like forces. Different experimental techniques are sensitive in respective ranges of characteristic distances. The techniques include measurements of gravity at short distances, searches for extra interactions on top of the Casimir force, precision atomic and neutron experiments. We focus on neutron constraints, thus the range of characteristic distances considered here corresponds to the range accessible for neutron experiments.