The lateral Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a corrugated surface should allow one to study experimentally non trivial geometrical effects in quantum vacuum. Here, we derive the theoretical expression of this force in a scattering approach that accounts for the optical properties of the corrugated surface. We show that large corrections to the ``proximity force approximation'' could be measured using present-day technology with a Bose-Einstein condensate used as a vacuum field sensor.
@article{arxiv.0709.2095,
title = {Probing quantum vacuum geometrical effects with cold atoms},
author = {Diego A. R. Dalvit and Paulo A. Maia Neto and Astrid Lambrecht and Serge Reynaud},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0709.2095},
year = {2009}
}