Search results for "Casimir-Polder"
showing 10 items of 43 documents
Dynamical Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and surface plasmons
2013
We investigate the time-dependent Casimir-Polder potential of a polarizable two-level atom placed near a surface of arbitrary material, after a sudden change in the parameters of the system. Different initial conditions are taken into account. For an initially bare ground-state atom, the time-dependent Casimir-Polder energy reveals how the atom is "being dressed" by virtual, matter-assisted photons. We also study the transient behavior of the Casimir-Polder interaction between the atom and the surface starting from a partially dressed state, after an externally induced change in the atomic level structure or transition dipoles. The Heisenberg equations are solved through an iterative techni…
Casimir-Polder interaction between an accelerated two-level system and an infinite plate
2007
We investigate the Casimir-Polder interaction energy between a uniformly accelerated two-level system and an infinite plate with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Our model is a two-level atom interacting with a massless scalar field, with a uniform acceleration in a direction parallel to the plate. We consider the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and of the radiation reaction field to the atom-wall Casimir-Polder interaction, and we discuss their dependence on the acceleration of the atom. We show that, as a consequence of the noninertial motion of the two-level atom, a thermal term is present in the vacuum fluctuation contribution to the Casimir-Polder interaction. Finally we discuss the…
Energy-level shifts of a uniformly accelerated atom between two reflecting plates
2011
We discuss the radiative level shifts of a uniformly accelerated atom moving between two infinite reflecting plates and interacting with a massless scalar field in the vacuum state. The atom, supposed to be a two-level system, accelerates in a direction parallel to the conducting plates. We evaluate separately the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction field to the energy shift of the atomic levels, and discuss their dependence on acceleration, atomic position and cavity length.
van der Waals Interaction Energy Between Two Atoms Moving With Uniform Acceleration
2013
We consider the interatomic van der Waals interaction energy between two neutral ground-state atoms moving in the vacuum space with the same uniform acceleration. We assume the acceleration orthogonal to their separation, so that their mutual distance remains constant. Using a model for the van der Waals dispersion interaction based on the interaction between the instantaneous atomic dipole moments, which are induced and correlated by the zero-point field fluctuations, we evaluate the interaction energy between the two accelerating atoms in terms of quantities expressed in the laboratory reference frame. We find that the dependence of the van der Waals interaction between the atoms from the…
Harmonic oscillator model for the atom-surface Casimir-Polder interaction energy
2012
In this paper we consider a quantum harmonic oscillator interacting with the electromagnetic radiation field in the presence of a boundary condition preserving the continuous spectrum of the field, such as an infinite perfectly conducting plate. Using an appropriate Bogoliubov-type transformation we can diagonalize exactly the Hamiltonian of our system in the continuum limit and obtain non-perturbative expressions for its ground-state energy. From the expressions found, the atom-wall Casimir-Polder interaction energy can be obtained, and well-know lowest-order results are recovered as a limiting case. Use and advantage of this method for dealing with other systems where perturbation theory …
A microscopic approach to Casimir and Casimir-Polder forces between metallic bodies
2014
We consider the Casimir-Polder interaction energy between a metallic nanoparticle and a metallic plate, as well as the Casimir interaction energy between two macroscopic metal plates, in terms of the many-body dispersion interactions between their constituents. Expressions for two- and three-body dispersion interactions between the microscopic parts of a real metal are first obtained, both in the retarded and non-retarded limits. These expressions are then used to evaluate, a compare each other, the overall two- and three-body contributions to the macroscopic Casimir-Polder and Casimir force, by summing up the contributions from the microscopic constituents of the bodies (metal nanoparticle…
Thermal and non-thermal signatures of the Unruh effect in Casimir-Polder forces
2014
We show that Casimir-Polder forces between two relativistic uniformly accelerated atoms exhibit a transition from the short distance thermal-like behavior predicted by the Unruh effect, to a long distance non-thermal behavior, associated with the breakdown of a local inertial description of the system. This phenomenology extends the Unruh thermal response detected by a single accelerated observer to an accelerated spatially extended system of two particles, and we identify the characteristic length scale for this crossover with the inverse of the proper acceleration of the two atoms. Our results are derived separating at fourth order in perturbation theory the contributions of vacuum fluctu…
Reply to "Comment on 'Dispersion Interaction between Two Hydrogen Atoms in a Static Electric Field' "
2020
In their Comment on our Letter Dispersion Interaction between Two Hydrogen Atoms in a Static Electric Field, P. P. Abrantes et al. address one of the main points discussed in our Letter, that is, the possibility to manipulate interatomic interactions through an external static electric field. In our Letter, we have shown that the interaction between two ground-state atoms can be significantly modified, exploiting an external static electric field, and even turned from attractive to repulsive, depending on the strength of the external field and the geometrical configu- ration. In their Comment, Abrantes et al. point out that it is the electrostatic contribution between the electric dipoles i…
Dynamical Casimir-Polder energy between an excited- and a ground-state atom.
2004
We consider the Casimir-Polder interaction between two atoms, one in the ground state and the other in its excited state. The interaction is time-dependent for this system, because of the dynamical self-dressing and the spontaneous decay of the excited atom. We calculate the dynamical Casimir-Polder potential between the two atoms using an effective Hamiltonian approach. The results obtained and their physical meaning are discussed and compared with previous results based on a time-independent approach which uses a non-normalizable dressed state for the excited atom.
Dynamical Casimir-Polder force on a partially dressed atom near a conducting wall
2010
We study the time evolution of the Casimir-Polder force acting on a neutral atom in front of a perfectly conducting plate, when the system starts its unitary evolution from a partially dressed state. We solve the Heisenberg equations for both atomic and field quantum operators, exploiting a series expansion with respect to the electric charge and an iterative technique. After discussing the behaviour of the time-dependent force on an initially partially-dressed atom, we analyze a possible experimental scheme to prepare the partially dressed state and the observability of this new dynamical effect.