Lateral Casimir-Polder force with corrugated surfaces - Archive ouverte HAL Accéder directement au contenu
Article Dans Une Revue Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical Année : 2008

Lateral Casimir-Polder force with corrugated surfaces

Résumé

We derive the lateral Casimir-Polder force on a ground state atom on top of a corrugated surface, up to first order in the corrugation amplitude. Our calculation is based on the scattering approach, which takes into account nonspecular reflections and polarization mixing for electromagnetic quantum fluctuations impinging on real materials. We compare our first order exact result with two commonly used approximation methods. We show that the proximity force approximation (large corrugation wavelengths) overestimates the lateral force, while the pairwise summation approach underestimates it due to the non-additivity of dispersion forces. We argue that a frequency shift measurement for the dipolar lateral oscillations of cold atoms could provide a striking demonstration of nontrivial geometrical effects on the quantum vacuum.

Dates et versions

hal-00183600 , version 1 (30-10-2007)

Identifiants

Citer

Diego A. R. Dalvit, Paulo A. Maia Neto, Astrid Lambrecht, Serge Reynaud. Lateral Casimir-Polder force with corrugated surfaces. Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretical, 2008, 41, pp.164028. ⟨10.1088/1751-8113/41/16/164028⟩. ⟨hal-00183600⟩
134 Consultations
0 Téléchargements

Altmetric

Partager

Gmail Facebook X LinkedIn More