Friction forces on atoms after acceleration
Abstract
The aim of this paper is to revisit the calculation of atom-surface quantum friction in the quantum field theory formulation put forward by Barton [New J. Phys. 12 (2010) 113045]. We show that the power dissipated into field excitations and the associated friction force depend on how the atom is boosted from being initially at rest to a configuration in which it is moving at constant velocity (v) parallel to the planar interface. In addition, we point out that there is a subtle cancellation between the one-photon and part of the two-photon dissipating power, resulting in a leading order contribution to the frictional power which goes as v^4. These results are also confirmed by an alternative calculation of the average radiation force, which scales as v^3.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1502.01117,
title = {Friction forces on atoms after acceleration},
author = {Francesco Intravaia and Vanik E. Mkrtchian and Stefan Buhmann and Stefan Scheel and Diego A. R. Dalvit and Carsten Henkel},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1502.01117},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
32 pages + 10 pages (appendices), 3 figures