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Casimir-Polder forces on atoms in the presence of magnetoelectric bodies = Casimir-Polder-Krafte auf Atome bei Anwesenheit magnetoeletrischer Korper

rer. nat. Buhmann, Stefan Yoshi

Published Jul 6, 2007• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

The Casimir-Polder force on a single atom in the presence of microscopic magneto-electric bodies is studied within the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics. In the first part, time-independent perturbation theory is used show that the static Casimir-Polder force on a ground-state atom in the presence of an arbitrary arrangement of bodies can be expressed in terms of the atom's polarisability and the scattering part of the Green tensor characterising the bodies. This result is used to verify the origin of the force and to study various bodies of simple shapes. In the second part, a genuinely dynamical approach is developed by starting from the operator Lorentz force. It is found that the dynamics of the force on initially excited atoms is governed by irreversible spontaneous decay in the case of weak atom-field coupling, while Rabi oscillations may arise for strong atom-field coupling.

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The Casimir-Polder force on a single atom in the presence of microscopic magneto-electric bodies is studied within the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics. In the first part, time-independent perturbation theory is used show that the static Casimir-Polder force on a ground-state atom in the presence of an arbitrary arrangement of bodies can be expressed in terms of the atom's polarisability and the scattering part of the Green tensor characterising the bodies. This result is used to verify the origin of the force and to study various bodies of simple shapes. In the second part, a genuinely dynamical approach is developed by starting from the operator Lorentz force. It is found that the dynamics of the force on initially excited atoms is governed by irreversible spontaneous decay in the case of weak atom-field coupling, while Rabi oscillations may arise for strong atom-field coupling.
Within the frame of macroscopic QED in linear, causal media, we study the radiation force of Casimir-Polder type acting on an atom which is positioned near dispersing and absorbing magnetodielectric bodies and initially prepared in an arbitrary electronic state. It is shown that minimal and multipolar coupling lead to essentially the same lowest-order perturbative result for the force acting on an atom in an energy eigenstate. To go beyond perturbation theory, the calculations are based on the exact center-of-mass equation of motion. For a nondriven atom in the weak-coupling regime, the force as a function of time is a superposition of force components that are related to the electronic density matrix elements at a chosen time. Even the force component associated with the ground state is not derivable from a potential in the ususal way, because of the position dependence of the atomic polarizability. Further, when the atom is initially prepared in a coherent superposition of energy eigenstates, then temporally oscillating force components are observed, which are due to the interaction of the atom with both electric and magnetic fields.
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.
Macroscopic quantum electrodynamics - Concepts and applications In this article, we review the principles of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics and discuss a variety of applications of this theory to medium-assisted atom-field coupling and dispersion forces. The theory generalises the standard mode expansion of the electromagnetic fields in free space to allow for the presence of absorbing bodies. We show that macroscopic quantum electrodynamics provides the link between isolated atomic systems and magnetoelectric bodies, and serves as an important tool for the understanding of surface-assisted atomic relaxation effects and the intimately connected position-dependent energy shifts which give rise to Casimir—Polder and van der Waals forces.
We investigate theoretically the Casimir-Polder potential of an atom which is driven by a laser field close to a surface. This problem is addressed in the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics using the Green's tensor formalism and we distinguish between two different approaches: a perturbative ansatz and a method based on Bloch equations. We apply our results to a concrete example, namely an atom close to a perfectly conducting mirror, and create a scenario where the tunable Casimir-Polder potential becomes similar to the respective potential of an undriven atom due to fluctuating field modes. Whereas the perturbative approach is restricted to large detunings, the ansatz based on Bloch equations is exact and yields an expression for the potential which does not exceed 1/21/21/2 of the undriven Casimir-Polder potential.
In this article, we review the principles of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics and discuss a variety of applications of this theory to medium-assisted atom-field coupling and dispersion forces. The theory generalises the standard mode expansion of the electromagnetic fields in free space to allow for the presence of absorbing bodies. We show that macroscopic quantum electrodynamics provides the link between isolated atomic systems and magnetoelectric bodies, and serves as an important tool for the understanding of surface-assisted atomic relaxation effects and the intimately connected position-dependent energy shifts which give rise to Casimir-Polder and van der Waals forces.