Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and an infinite boundary in a thermal bath
- Department of Physics and Institute of Physics, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410081, China Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Structures and Quantum Control of Ministry of Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan 410081 (China)
We study the energy level shift of a static two-level atom interacting with a massless scalar field in a thermal bath with the presence of a plane boundary, which gives rise to the Casimir-Polder force. We separately calculate contributions of both thermal fluctuations and radiation reaction using the formalism suggested by J. Dalibard, J. Dupont-Roc, and C. Cohen-Tannoudji [J. Phys. (France) 43, 1617 (1982); 45, 673 (1984)] and analyze in detail the behaviors of the total energy level shifts in three distinct distance regimes in both the low- and high-temperature limits. A comparison of our results with those of a uniformly accelerated atom reveals that uniformly accelerated atoms, in general, do not behave the same as static ones in a thermal bath at the Unruh temperature in terms of the atomic energy level shifts.
- OSTI ID:
- 21388677
- Journal Information:
- Physical Review. A, Vol. 81, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.81.012108; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 1050-2947
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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