Enhancement of Blackbody Friction due to the Finite Lifetime of Atomic Levels

Łach, Grzegorz; DeKieviet, Maarten

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.108.043005

Cited by 32 publications

(51 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…This leads to a very peculiar behaviour of the friction force as a function of the temperature, as outlined in Ref. [14].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

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Einstein-Hopf drag, Doppler shift of thermal radiation and blackbody drag: Three perspectives on quantum friction

Łach¹,

DeKieviet

2012

Open Physics

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Abstract:The thermal friction force acting on an atom moving relative to a thermal photon bath has recently been calculated on the basis of the fluctuation-dissipation theorem. The thermal fluctuations of the electromagnetic field give rise to a drag force on an atom provided one allows for dissipation of the field energy via spontaneous emission. The drag force exists if the atomic polarizability has a nonvanishing imaginary part. Here, we explore alternative derivations. The damping of the motion of a simple harmonic oscillator is described by radiative reaction theory (result of Einstein and Hopf), taking into account the known stochastic fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. Describing the excitations of the atom as an ensemble of damped harmonic oscillators, we identify the previously found expressions as generalizations of the Einstein-Hopf result. In addition, we present a simple explanation for blackbody friction in terms of a Doppler shift of the thermal radiation in the inertial frame of the moving atom: The atom absorbs blue-shifted photons from the front and radiates off energy in all directions, thereby losing energy. The original plus the two alternative derivations provide for additional confirmation of an intriguing quantum friction effect, and leave no doubt regarding its existence.PACS (2008)

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“…This leads to a very peculiar behaviour of the friction force as a function of the temperature, as outlined in Ref. [14].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…These are discussed in Ref. [14]. Indeed, it turns out that the numerical evaluation of the integral…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Einstein-Hopf drag, Doppler shift of thermal radiation and blackbody drag: Three perspectives on quantum friction

Łach¹,

DeKieviet

2012

Open Physics

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“…Complementing the effect non-contact friction, the drag exerted by oncoming blue-shifted thermal blackbody radiation on a moving atom has recently been analyzed for nonrelativistic neutral atoms as they travel through space [21][22][23][24]. Both the blackbody as well as the non-contact quantum (thermal) friction require as input the imaginary part of the atom's polarizability, whose precise functional form for small driving frequencies is different depending on whether one uses (i) resonant Dirac-δ peaks [21], or the (ii) length-gauge or (iii) velocity-gauge expressions in the low-frequency limit (see Chap.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…[25] and Ref. [24]). Any theoretical prediction crucially depends on a resolution of the "gauge puzzle", which is the subject of the current Letter.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The polarizability is normally given in atomic units in the literature [36][37][38]. Assuming that Im [(ǫ(ω) − 1)/(ǫ(ω) + 1)] ∼ ω/Ω 0 for ω → 0, where Ω 0 is a characteristic frequency of the material, the van der Waals friction coefficient reads as [24]). We also consider the CaF 2 van der Waals friction (for the temperature-dependent dielectric function, see Refs.…”

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confidence: 99%

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One-Loop Dominance in the Imaginary Part of the Polarizability: Application to Blackbody and Noncontact van der Waals Friction

Łach

Kieviet²,

Pachucki

2015

Phys. Rev. Lett.

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Phenomenologically important quantum dissipative processes include black-body friction (an atom absorbs counterpropagating blue-shifted photons and spontaneously emits them in all directions, losing kinetic energy) and non-contact van der Waals friction (in the vicinity of a dielectric surface, the mirror charges of the constituent particles inside the surface experience drag, slowing the atom). The theoretical predictions for these processes are modified upon a rigorous quantum electrodynamic (QED) treatment, which shows that the one-loop "correction" yields the dominant contribution to the off-resonant, gauge-invariant, imaginary part of the atom's polarizability at room temperature, for typical atom-surface interactions. The tree-level contribution to the polarizability dominates at high temperature. Introduction.-Can a physical object experience friction effects, even if it is not in contact with a surface, i.e., even if the overlap of the wave function of the atom with the surface is negligible? This question has intrigued physicists for the last three decades, and the precise functional form of the non-contact friction of an atom-surface interaction has been discussed controversially in the literature [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]. Intuitively, if an ion moves parallel to a surface, at a distance a few (hundred) nanomenters, then it is quite natural to assume that the motion of the mirror charge inside the material leads to Ohmic heating and thus, to a commensurate energy loss (friction force) acting on the atom flying by. The corresponding effect for a neutral atom is less obvious to analyze, but one may argue that the thermal fluctuations of the electric dipole moment of the atom may induce corresponding fluctuations of the mirror charge(s) of the constituent particles of the atom inside the material, again leading to Ohmic heating. The derivation relies heavily on the quantum statistical theory of thermal fluctuations of the electromagnetic field near a surface, and on the fluctuation-dissipation theorem [5,10,11]. For non-contact friction in the zero-temperature limit, even the existence of the effect still is subject to scientific debate [12][13][14][15]. Ultimately, non-contact friction effects limit the extent to which friction forces [16] can be reduced in an experiment. These limits are important for three-dimensional atomic imaging [17], tests of gravitational interactions at small length scales [18], limits of magnetic resonance force microscopy [19], and they affect the behavior of micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) at the nanometer scale [20].

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Thermal QED theory for bound states

Solovyev

2020

Annals of Physics

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In present paper the Quantum Electrodynamics theory at finite temperatures for the bound states is presented. To describe the thermal effects arising in a heat bath the Hadamard form of thermal photon propagator is employed. This form permits the simple introduction of thermal gauges in a way similar to the 'ordinary' Feynman propagator and, therefore, the gauge invariance can be proved for all the considered effects. Moreover, contrary to the 'standard' form of thermal photon propagator, the Hadamard expression has a well defined analytical properties. However, this thermal photon propagator contains the divergent contribution which requires the introduction of regularization procedure within the framework of constructed theory. The method of regularization in conjunction with the physical interpretation is given in the paper. Correctness of regularization procedure is confirmed also by the gauge invariance of final results and coincidence of the results (on the example of self-energy correction) for two different forms of photon propagator. On the basis of constructed theory the thermal Coulomb potential and its asymptotics at the large distances are found. Finally, we discuss in details the thermal effects of lowest order in the fine structure constant and temperature. Such effects are presented by the thermal one-photon exchange between bound electron and nucleus, thermal one-loop self-energy, thermal vacuum polarization, recoil corrections and correction on the finite size of the nucleus. Introduction of the regularization allows us do not apply the renormalization procedure. To confirm this we describe also the thermal vertex (with one, two and three vertices) corrections within the adiabatic S-matrix formalism. Finally, the influence of thermal effects on the determination of proton radius and Rydberg constant is discussed in the paper.

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Enhancement of Blackbody Friction due to the Finite Lifetime of Atomic Levels

Cited by 32 publications

References 15 publications

Einstein-Hopf drag, Doppler shift of thermal radiation and blackbody drag: Three perspectives on quantum friction

Einstein-Hopf drag, Doppler shift of thermal radiation and blackbody drag: Three perspectives on quantum friction

One-Loop Dominance in the Imaginary Part of the Polarizability: Application to Blackbody and Noncontact van der Waals Friction

Thermal QED theory for bound states

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