Quantum friction and fluctuation theorems

Abstract

We use general concepts of statistical mechanics to compute the quantum frictional force on an atom moving at constant velocity above a planar surface. We derive the zero-temperature frictional force using a non-equilibrium fluctuation-dissipation relation, and show that in the large-time, steady-state regime quantum friction scales as the cubic power of the atom's velocity. We also discuss how approaches based on Wigner-Weisskopf and quantum regression approximations fail to predict the correct steady-state zero temperature frictional force, mainly due to the low frequency nature of quantum friction.Comment: 5+1 pages, 1 figur

Casimir friction between polarizable particle and half-space with radiation damping at zero temperature

“…To our knowledge this has not been made before. As for the specific problem considered in the present paper, we have made contact with the recent calculation of Intravaia et al [17]. The damping mechanism there is quite different, being due to the modification of the atomic polarizability by the conducting plate, and in fact in the two Appendices of this paper, we rederive their result based on this alternative mechanism.…”

Equivalence between the Hamiltonian and Langevin noise descriptions of plasmon polaritons in a dispersive and lossy inhomogeneous medium

“…2). As we reminded before the DLN approach has an old history and was already used by Lifshitz and Rytov in order to justify the Casimir force formula [53][54][55] and later it was naturally used in the quantized version of the DLN [46][47][48][49][50]. The standard DLN approach apparently differs strongly in essence from the so-called scattering approach [77][78][79] that considers the radiation pressure exerted by scattered optical modes on the material system.…”

“…56 plays also a key role for the calculation of fluctuations and correlations [33] at different spatial positions and for evaluation of Casimir and thermal forces [46][47][48][49][50]. Here, within the new DLN formalism the calculations will become more transparent.…”

“…Instead, fluctuating currents are phenomenologically added to deal with the problem of dissipation and dispersion. This approach was intensively used in the literature [27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36], e. g., for describing optical Bloch equations in the weak or strong optical coupling in QNP [37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44][45], Casimir interactions, quantum frictions and thermal fluctuating forces [46][47][48][49][50], and more recently for modeling quantum optical non-linearities such as spontaneous down conversion of photon pairs [51,52]. It is central to observe that the DLN approach is a direct development of the historical works by Rytov and others [53][54][55][56] which, based on some considerations about the standard fluctuation dissipation theorem for electric currents [57], was used for justifying Casimir and thermal forces (for recent developments of such phenomenological 'fluctuational electrodynamics' techniques in the context of nanotechnology see [58][59][60][61][62][63]).…”

PT-symmetric spectral singularity and negative-frequency resonance

“…* zjacob@ualberta.ca These instabilities in a moving medium are caused by the Cherenkov amplification of negative energy waves [27] and have been recently linked to the noncontact vacuum friction [28][29][30][31] between media at relative motion. Vacuum friction arises from quantum-fluctuation induced near-field photonic interactions [32], and has also been studied in particles moving near surfaces [33][34][35][36] and in rotating bodies [37,38]. The nature of vacuum friction is to oppose the relative motion, and therefore the energy spent in maintaining the relative velocities is utilized in the amplification of vacuum fluctuations, which results in the instabilities.…”