Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

The London-van der Waals interaction in the presence of evanescent waves

Ángela M. Guzmán

Published Oct 21, 2004• 0 citations

Abstract

The London-van der Waals potential experienced by an atom under reflection from an atomic mirror is modeled as a quantum dipole-dipole interaction between the atomic dipole induced by the evanescent wave and its image dipole in the dielectric mirror. The quantum dipole-dipole interaction arises from the combined effect of the evanescent field and spontaneous emission. It depends on the electronic structure of the atom and is described by an effective non-Hermitian Hamiltonian that yields dissipative effects under reflection. The analytical expression obtained here preserves the power-law dependence of the static van der Waals interaction at distances close to the wall, but its long-distance behavior reflects that of the evanescent wave.

DOI: 10.1117/12.590628

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