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

Journal Article · Fri Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 2004 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.70.042901· OSTI ID:20646378

Babb, J F; Klimchitskaya, G L; Mostepanenko, V M ^[1]

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1. Institute for Theoretical Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, MS 14, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (United States)

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 atom-wall distances. Numerical computations are performed for an Au wall and metastable He*, Na, and Cs atoms. For the He* 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 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 1%.

• OSTI ID: 20646378
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Journal Name: Physical Review. A Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 70; ISSN 1050-2947; ISSN PLRAAN
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ACCURACY
ATOMS
CASIMIR EFFECT
CESIUM
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CORRECTIONS
DISTANCE
FREE ENERGY
GOLD
HELIUM
OSCILLATORS
PLASMA
POLARIZABILITY
QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS
SODIUM
SURFACES
WAVELENGTHS