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arXiv:quant-ph/0403158 · Physical Review A

Dynamical Casimir-Polder energy between an excited- and a ground-state atom

Lucia Rizzuto, Roberto Passante, Franco Persico

Published Jul 12, 2004• 66 citations
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Abstract

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 nonnormalizable dressed state for the excited atom.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.70.012107

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Abstract We investigate the dynamical Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a conducting wall during the time evolution of the system from a partially dressed state. This state is obtained by a sudden change of the atomic position with respect to the plate. To evaluate the time-dependent atom-plate Casimir-Polder force we solve the Heisenberg equations for the field and atomic operators by an iterative technique. We find that the dynamical atom-plate Casimir-Polder interaction exhibits oscillation in time, and can be attractive or repulsive depending on time and the atom-wall distance. We also investigate the time dependence of global observables, such as the field and atomic Hamiltonians, and discuss some interesting features of the dynamical process bringing the interaction energy to the equilibrium configuration.
The potential of long-range interaction between two dissimilar atoms, one of which is excited, drops as 1/R 2 with the distance for the Casimir-Polder limit of large distances in comparison with the wave-length of atom transitions (E.A. Power and T. Thirunamachandran, Phys. Rev. A 51, 3660 (1995)). It is shown that such a dependence, obtained with the help of perturbation technique, results in a divergence for the interaction potential between an excited atom and a medium of dilute gas. We develop a nonperturbative method based upon quantum Green’s functions (Yu. Sherkunov, Phys. Rev. A 72, 052703 (2005)) to calculate the interaction potential for an excited atom and a ground-state atom embedded in a dielectric medium, taking into account the absorption of photons in the dielectric medium. The exponential suppression of the interaction between the atoms is demonstrated. The force acting on an excited atom near the interface of dilute gas medium is calculated. The result is no more divergent. The force between gas media in Casimir-Polder regime is calculated as well.