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arXiv:1503.00986 · Physical Review A

van der Waals interactions between excited atoms in generic environments

Pablo Barcellona, Roberto Passante, Lucia Rizzuto, Stefan Yoshi Buhmann

Published Jul 27, 2016• 36 citations
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Abstract

We consider the van der Waals force involving excited atoms in general environments, constituted by magnetodielectric bodies. We develop a dynamical approach studying the dynamics of the atoms and the field, mutually coupled. When only one atom is excited, our dynamical theory suggests that for large distances the van der Waals force acting on the ground-state atom is monotonic, while the force acting in the excited atom is spatially oscillating. We show how this latter force can be related to the known oscillating Casimir-Polder force on an excited atom near a (ground-state) body. Our force also reveals a population-induced dynamics: for times much larger that the atomic lifetime the atoms will decay to their ground states leading to the van der Waals interaction between ground-state atoms.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.94.012705

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We consider the van der Waals force involving excited atoms in general environments, constituted by magnetodielectric bodies. We develop a dynamical approach studying the dynamics of the atoms and the field, mutually coupled. When only one atom is excited, our dynamical theory suggests that for large distances the van der Waals force acting on the ground-state atom is monotonic, while the force acting in the excited atom is spatially oscillating. We show how this latter force can be related to the known oscillating Casimir-Polder force on an excited atom near a (ground-state) body. Our force also reveals a population-induced dynamics: for times much larger that the atomic lifetime the atoms will decay to their ground states leading to the van der Waals interaction between ground-state atoms.
Van der Waals forces between atoms and molecules are universally assumed to act along the line separating them. Inspired by recent works on effects which can propel atoms parallel to a macroscopic surface via the Casimir-Polder force, we predict a lateral van der Waals force between two atoms, one of which is in an excited state with nonzero angular momentum and the other is isotropic and in its ground state. The resulting force acts in the same way as a planetary gear, in contrast to the rack-and-pinion motion predicted in works on the lateral Casimir-Polder force in the analogous case, for which the force predicted here is the microscopic origin. We illustrate the effect by predicting the trajectories of an excited caesium in the vicinity of ground-state rubidium, finding behavior qualitatively different to that if lateral forces are ignored.
The van der Waals interaction between two ground-state atoms is calculated for two electrically or magnetically polarizable particles embedded in a dispersive magnetodielectric medium. Unlike previous calculations which infer the atom-atom interaction from the dilute-medium limit of the macroscopic, many-body van der Waals interaction, the interaction is calculated directly for the system of two atoms in a magnetodielectric medium. Two approaches are presented, the first based on the quantized electromagnetic field in a dispersive medium without absorption and the second on Green functions that allow for absorption. We show that the correct van der Waals interactions are obtained regardless of whether absorption in the host medium is explicitly taken into account.
We present a formula for the body-assisted van der Waals interaction potential between two atoms, one or both being prepared in an excited energy eigenstate. The presence of an arbitrary arrangement for a material environment is taken into account via the Green function. The resulting formula supports one of two conflicting findings recorded. The consistency of our formula is investigated by applying it for the case of two atoms in free space and comparing the resulting expression with the one found from the limiting Casimir-Polder potential between an excited atom and a small dielectric sphere.
We consider the dynamical atom-surface Casimir-Polder force in the nonequilibrium configuration of an atom near a perfectly conducting wall, initially prepared in an excited state with the field in its vacuum state. We evaluate the time-dependent Casimir-Polder force on the atom and find that it shows an oscillatory behavior from attractive to repulsive both in time and in space. We also investigate the asymptotic behavior in time of the dynamical force and of related local field quantities, showing that the static value of the force, as obtained by a time-independent approach, is recovered for times much longer than the time scale of the atomic self-dressing but shorter than the atomic decay time. We then discuss the evolution of global quantities such as atomic and field energies and their asymptotic behavior. We also compare our results for the dynamical force on the excited atom with analogous results recently obtained for an initially bare ground-state atom. We show that new relevant features are obtained in the case of an initially excited atom, for example, much larger values of the dynamical force with respect to the static one, allowing for an easier way to single out and observe the dynamical Casimir-Polder effect.
We present a time-dependent calculation of the velocity-dependent forces which act on an excited atomic dipole in relative motion with respect to ground state atoms of a different kind. Both its interaction with a single atom and with a dilute atomic plate are evaluated. In either case, the total force consists of a conservative van der Waals component and a nonconservative R\"ontgen component. On physical grounds, the former corresponds to the velocity-dependent recoil experienced by the excited atom in the processes of absorption and emission of the photons that it exchanges with the ground-state atoms on a periodic basis. The latter corresponds to the time-variation of the R\"ontgen momentum, which is also mediated by the periodic exchange of quasiresonant photons. We find that, at leading order, all these interactions are linear in velocity. In the nonretarded regime the van der Waals force dominates, being antiparallel to the velocity. On the contrary, in the retarded regime the velocity-dependent forces oscillate in space, van der Waals and R\"ontgen forces are of the same order in the atom-atom interaction, and the R\"ontgen component dominates in the atom-surface interaction.