Response of a uniformly accelerated detector to massless Rarita–Schwinger fields in vacuum
- Department of Physics and Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Structures and Quantum Control of Ministry of Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410081 (China)
- Center for Nonlinear Science and Department of Physics, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang 315211 (China)
We study the response of a uniformly accelerated detector modeled by a two-level atom nonlinearly coupled to vacuum massless Rarita–Schwinger fields. We first generalize the formalism developed by Dalibard, Dupont-Roc, and Cohen-Tannoudji in the linear coupling case, and we then calculate the mean rate of change of the atomic energy of the accelerated atom. Our result shows that a uniformly accelerated atom in its ground state interacting with vacuum Rarita–Schwinger field fluctuations would spontaneously transition to an excited state and the unique feature in contrast to the case of the atom coupled to the scalar, electromagnetic and Dirac fields is the appearance of terms in the excitation rate which are proportional to the sixth and eighth powers of acceleration. - Highlights: • We study the response of an accelerated detector to Rarita–Schwinger fields. • Detector spontaneously transitions to an excited state in vacuum. • Excitation rate contains terms of the sixth and eighth powers of acceleration.
- OSTI ID:
- 22403383
- Journal Information:
- Annals of Physics (New York), Vol. 348; Other Information: Copyright (c) 2014 Elsevier Science B.V., Amsterdam, The Netherlands, All rights reserved.; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-4916
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Spontaneous excitation of a detector in circular motion coupled to massless Rarita–Schwinger fields in vacuum
Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and an infinite boundary in a thermal bath