Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a cavity wall under the influence of real conditions

Details Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a cavity wall under the influence of real conditions Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a cavity wall under the influence of real conditions

2004-05-27

arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0405163v2

Phys. Rev. A 70, 042901 (2004)

Physics

Quantum Physics

23 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; minor corrections. Phys. Rev. A, to appear

Scientific paper

10.1103/PhysRevA.70.042901

The Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a metal wall is investigated under the influence of real conditions including the dynamic polarizability of the atom, finite conductivity of the wall metal and nonzero temperature of the system. Both analytical and numerical results for the free energy and force are obtained over a wide range of the atom-wall distances. Numerical computations are performed for an Au wall and metastable He${}^{\ast}$, Na and Cs atoms. For the He${}^{\ast}$ atom we demonstrate, as an illustration, that at short separations of about the Au plasma wavelength at room temperature the free energy deviates up to 35% and the force up to 57% from the classical Casimir-Polder result. Accordingly, such large deviations should be taken into account in precision experiments on atom-wall interactions. The combined account of different corrections to the Casimir-Polder interaction leads to the conclusion that at short separations the corrections due to the dynamic polarizability of an atom play a more important role than -- and suppress -- the corrections due to the nonideality of the metal wall. By the comparison of the exact atomic polarizabilities with those in the framework of the single oscillator model, it is shown that the obtained asymptotic expressions enable calculation of the free energy and force for the atom-wall interaction under real conditions with a precision of one percent.

Affiliated with

Also associated with

No associations

Rating

Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a cavity wall under the influence of real conditions does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a cavity wall under the influence of real conditions, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a cavity wall under the influence of real conditions will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

Comments { 0 }

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-270511