Mapping Out Atom-Wall Interaction with Atomic Clocks
- Department of Physics, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557 (United States)
We explore the feasibility of probing atom-wall interaction with atomic clocks based on atoms trapped in engineered optical lattices. Optical lattice is normal to the wall. By monitoring the wall-induced clock shift at individual wells of the lattice, one would measure the dependence of the atom-wall interaction on the atom-wall separation. We find that the induced clock shifts are large and observable at already experimentally demonstrated levels of accuracy. We show that this scheme may uniquely probe the long-range atom-wall interaction in all three qualitatively distinct regimes of the interaction: van der Waals (image-charge interaction), Casimir-Polder (QED vacuum fluctuations), and Lifshitz (thermal-bath fluctuations) regimes.
- OSTI ID:
- 21370697
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review Letters, Vol. 103, Issue 13; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.103.133201; (c) 2009 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0031-9007
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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