Search results for "Casimir-Polder forces"

Dynamical Casimir-Polder forces between an atom and a conducting wall

2008

Fluctuations of the Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a conducting wall

2007

We consider the quantum fluctuations of the Casimir-Polder force between a neutral atom and a perfectly conducting wall in the ground state of the system. In order to obtain the atom-wall force fluctuation we first define an operator directly associated to the force experienced by the atom considered as a polarizable body in an electromagnetic field, and we use a time-averaged force operator in order to avoid ultraviolet divergences appearing in the fluctuation of the force. This time-averaged force operator takes into account that any measurement involves a finite time. We also calculate the Casimir-Polder force fluctuation for an atom between two conducting walls. Experimental observabili…

Energy level shifts of a uniformly accelerated atom in the presence of boundary conditions

2009

We discuss the radiative level shifts of an atom moving with uniform acceleration near an infinite reflecting plate. We first consider the case of a two-level system interacting with a massless scalar field in the vacuum state. The acceleration of the two-level atom is supposed in a direction parallel to the conducting plate. We evaluate the contribution of vacuum fluctuations and of the radiation reaction field to the energy shift of the atomic levels, and discuss their behaviour as a function of the atomic acceleration and of the atom-plate distance. Then, we investigate the more general case of an hydrogen atom accelerating near a perfectly reflecting plate and interacting with the elect…

Time-dependent Maxwell field operators and field energy density for an atom near a conducting wall

2009

We consider the time evolution of the electric and magnetic field operators for a two-level atom, interacting with the electromagnetic field, placed near an infinite perfectly conducting wall. We solve iteratively the Heisenberg equations for the field operators and obtain the electric and magnetic energy density operators around the atom (valid for any initial state). Then we explicitly evaluate them for an initial state with the atom in its bare ground state and the field in the vacuum state. We show that the results can be physically interpreted as the superposition of the fields propagating directly from the atom and the fields reflected on the wall. Relativistic causality in the field …

Casimir-Polder forces, boundary conditions and fluctuations

2008

We review different aspects of the atom-atom and atom-wall Casimir-Polder forces. We first discuss the role of a boundary condition on the interatomic Casimir-Polder potential between two ground-state atoms, and give a physically transparent interpretation of the results in terms of vacuum fluctuations and image atomic dipoles. We then discuss the known atom-wall Casimir-Polder force for ground- and excited-state atoms, using a different method which is also suited for extension to time-dependent situations. Finally, we consider the fluctuation of the Casimir-Polder force between a ground-state atom and a conducting wall, and discuss possible observation of this force fluctuation.

Les interactiones de Casimir hors d'équilibre : effets dynamiques et thermiques

2016

In this thesis, after an introduction where we briefly present the general context of Casimir physics, we present the results obtained during the PhD. At first, we show our work about the van der Waals/Casimir-Polder interactions between two atoms in an out-of-equilibrium condition due to their uniformly accelerated motion. We study the system of two uniformly accelerated atoms in vacuum space, when they are in their ground-state and when they are in a correlated state (one excited and one ground-state atom). We analyze this system both with an heuristic semiclassical model and with a more rigorous method, based on a separation of radiation reaction and vacuum fluctuations contributions, th…