Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics – General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Scientific paper
2005-09-15
Phys.Rev. D72 (2005) 064022; Erratum-ibid. D73 (2006) 109901
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
A few typographical errors corrected
Scientific paper
10.1103/PhysRevD.72.064022
We study a two-level atom in interaction with a real massless scalar quantum field in a spacetime with a reflecting boundary. The presence of the boundary modifies the quantum fluctuations of the scalar field, which in turn modifies the radiative properties of atoms. We calculate the rate of change of the mean atomic energy of the atom for both inertial motion and uniform acceleration. It is found that the modifications induced by the presence of a boundary make the spontaneous radiation rate of an excited inertial atom to oscillate near the boundary and this oscillatory behavior may offer a possible opportunity for experimental tests for geometrical (boundary) effects in flat spacetime. While for accelerated atoms, the transitions from ground states to excited states are found to be possible even in vacuum due to changes in the vacuum fluctuations induced by both the presence of the boundary and the acceleration of atoms, and this can be regarded as an actual physical process underlying the Unruh effect.
Lu Shizhuan
Yu Hongwei
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