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arXiv:1707.08059

Velocity-dependent forces, Maxwell's demon, and the quantum theory

J. D. Franson

Published Jul 25, 2017• 0 citations
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Abstract

An atom moving in a focused laser beam will experience a velocity-dependent dipole force due to the Doppler effect, which allows the operation of a Maxwell's demon. Photon scattering and other forms of dissipation can be negligibly small, which appears to contradict quantum information proofs that a Maxwell's demon must dissipate a minimum amount of energy. We resolve this 'paradox' by showing that Schrodinger's equation does not predict a velocity-dependent dipole force. Forces of that kind have been observed experimentally, however, and we show that Heisenberg's equation does predict a velocity-dependent dipole force in agreement with experiment, provided that the total time derivative of an operator is evaluated along the trajectory of an atom.

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An atom moving in a focused laser beam will experience a velocity-dependent dipole force due to the Doppler effect, which allows the operation of a Maxwell's demon. Photon scattering and other forms of dissipation can be negligibly small, which appears to contradict quantum information proofs that a Maxwell's demon must dissipate a minimum amount of energy. We resolve this 'paradox' by showing that Schrodinger's equation does not predict a velocity-dependent dipole force. Forces of that kind have been observed experimentally, however, and we show that Heisenberg's equation does predict a velocity-dependent dipole force in agreement with experiment, provided that the total time derivative of an operator is evaluated along the trajectory of an atom.
An atom placed in a focused laser beam will experience a dipole force due to the gradient in the interaction energy, which is analogous to the well-known optical tweezers effect. This force will be dependent on the velocity of the atom due to the Doppler effect, which could potentially be used to implement a Maxwell's demon. Photon scattering and other forms of dissipation can be negligibly small, which would seem to contradict quantum information proofs that a Maxwell's demon must dissipate a minimum amount of energy. We show that the velocity dependence of the dipole force is cancelled out by another force that is related to the gradient in the phase of the laser beam. As a result, a Maxwell's demon cannot be implemented in this way.
The theory of a method to measure electric-dipole polarizabilities is presented. The method uses two-stage laser ablation to produce a pulsed beam of atoms from a solid target. A pair of slits makes the velocity distribution of the atomic beam nonuniform in a way that is well characterized. The light-force technique uses the polarization forces experienced by an atom in the intense, inhomogeneous electromagnetic field of a standing-wave laser to change the velocity distribution of the atomic beam. The large forces cause measurable Doppler shifts in the resonant frequency of the atoms. These frequency shifts change the amount of absorption of resonant light, yielding information about the change in the velocity distribution of the atoms. The detailed shape of the final absorption distribution is polarizability dependent. In the classical picture of the light force, the standing-wave electric field induces a time-varying dipole moment in each atom. Each atom then experiences a Lorentz force due to coherent interaction of the oscillating dipole moment with the time-varying magnetic field. The quantum-mechanical picture corresponds to the Kapitza-Dirac effect for atoms: an atom absorbs a photon from one of the two beams which form the standing wave, and is then stimulated to emit this photon by the other, counterpropagating beam. This paper provides a classical treatment of the light force experienced by an atom in a standing-wave light field; the polarizability is treated quantum mechanically. The theory presented here can be applied to atoms with a scalar polarizability, such as rubidium, and to atoms with significant tensor components, such as uranium. Experimental results from application of the light-force technique to a measurement of the polarizability of rubidium are also presented.
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.
We consider an atom moving in a near resonant laser field with its dipole strongly coupled to a resonator field mode. As compared to the standard Doppler shift, we find a substantially different and counterintuitive linear velocity dependence of the light scattering properties. The mechanical force of the laser field exhibits strong velocity selectivity at a polariton resonance, which gives rise to an enhanced friction force and Doppler cooling even in the directions perpendicular to the resonator axis. This effect allows for sub-Doppler cooling of atoms even with a nondegenerate ground state.
Quantization processes generally assume the Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics. The notion of dissipation does not fit easily into the Hamiltonian structure. There appeared in the literature a quantization process that circumvents the use of the Hamiltonian approach and derives the Schr\"odinger equation from first principles. Thus, the usual approach of assuming a dissipative force of the type fd=k(t)v{f}_{d}=k(t)vfd​=k(t)v, where k(t)k(t)k(t) is a scalar depending only on the time and vvv is the velocity, can be approached using this quantization process to mathematically derive a Schr\"odinger equation. The derivation for this simple case was already performed by the authors elsewhere. The full generalization of a dissipative force in the context of a linear response theory, as is usual in classical mechanics, would be to write this force as fi(x,t)=Kij(x,t)vj{f}_{i}(\mathbf{x},t)={\mathcal{K}}_{ij}(\mathbf{x},t){v}_{j}fi​(x,t)=Kij​(x,t)vj​, where K(x,t)\mathcal{K}(\mathbf{x},t)K(x,t) is a tensor giving the nonhomogeneity and nonisotropy of the process. In this paper, we present this generalization and connect our results with nonlinear Schr\"odinger-like equations already known from the literature.
Atoms moving in an intense, near resonant standing wave (SW) experience a force along the direction of the SW. This force has been investigated by observing its effect on the transverse velocities of atoms in a thermal beam. When the standing wave is tuned above resonance the atomic beam is collimated and has an increased intensity at the center of the beam. Below resonance, the SW anti-collimates the atomic beam, reducing the central intensity. These effects are due to the interaction between the induced atomic dipole and the inhomogeneous field of the SW. Further investigation shows structure in the transverse velocity distribution of the atomic beam. This structure is due to multiphoton (Doppleron) resonances in the force. Calculations reproduce the dipole force and multiphoton resonance effects and are in good agreement with the data.