Measurement of the Temperature Dependence of the Casimir-Polder Force

Journal Article · Fri Feb 09 04:00:00 EST 2007 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.98.063201· OSTI ID:20955445

Obrecht, J M; Wild, R J; Cornell, E A ^[1]; Antezza, M; Stringari, S ^[2]; Pitaevskii, L P ^[2]

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1. JILA, National Institute of Standards and Technology and University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0440, USA, and Department of Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80309-0390 (United States)
2. Dipartimento di Fisica, Universita di Trento and CNR-INFM BEC Center, Via Sommarive 14, I-38050 Povo, Trento (Italy)

We report on the first measurement of a temperature dependence of the Casimir-Polder force. This measurement was obtained by positioning a nearly pure {sup 87}Rb Bose-Einstein condensate a few microns from a dielectric substrate and exciting its dipole oscillation. Changes in the collective oscillation frequency of the magnetically trapped atoms result from spatial variations in the surface-atom force. In our experiment, the dielectric substrate is heated up to 605 K, while the surrounding environment is kept near room temperature (310 K). The effect of the Casimir-Polder force is measured to be nearly 3 times larger for a 605 K substrate than for a room-temperature substrate, showing a clear temperature dependence in agreement with theory.

• OSTI ID: 20955445
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 6 Vol. 98; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
BOSE-EINSTEIN CONDENSATION
DIELECTRIC MATERIALS
DIPOLES
OSCILLATIONS
RUBIDIUM 87
SUBSTRATES
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0273-0400 K
TEMPERATURE RANGE 0400-1000 K