Related papers: Vacuum Friction
It is known that, when an excited atom spontaneously emits one photon, two effects are produced. First, the atom's internal and external states are entangled with the states of the emitted photon. Second, the atom receives a momentum…
An atom moving in a vacuum at constant velocity and parallel to a surface experiences a frictional force induced by the dissipative interaction with the quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. We show that the combination of…
We study the frictional torque acting on particles rotating in empty space. At zero temperature, vacuum friction transforms mechanical energy into light emission and produces particle heating. However, particle cooling relative to the…
When two or more objects move relative to one another in vacuum, they experience a drag force which, at zero temperature, usually goes under the name of quantum friction. This contactless non-conservative interaction is mediated by the…
We show how a simple calculation leads to the surprising result that an excited two-level atom moving through vacuum sees a tiny friction force of first order in v/c. At first sight this seems to be in obvious contradiction to other…
This work explores a classical mechanical theory under two further assumptions: (a) there is a universal dry friction force (Aristotelian mechanics), and (b) the variation of the mass of a body due to wear is proportional to the work done…
Friction is usually a very complicated process. It appears in its most elementary form when two flat surfaces separated by vacuum gap are sliding relative to each other at zero Kelvin and the friction is generated by the relative movement…
From the generalized fluctuation-dissipation theorem, it is known that a body at rest made of nonreciprocal material may experience a torque, even in vacuum, if it is not in thermal equilibrium with its environment. However, it does not…
Zero-point quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic vacuum create the widely known London-van der Waals attractive force between two atoms. Recently, there was a revived interest in the interaction of rotating matter with the quantum…
The possibility of an extrinsic origin for inertial reaction forces has recently seen increased attention in the physical literature. Among theories of extrinsic inertia, the two considered by the current work are (1) the hypothesis that…
Using a powerful combination of projection-operator method and path-space response theory, we derive the fluctuation dynamics of a slow inertial probe coupled to a steady nonequilibrium medium under the assumption of time-scale separation.…
The dynamical friction force experienced by a body moving at relativistic speed in a gaseous medium is examined. This force, which arises due to the gravitational interaction of the body with its own gravitationally-induced wake, is…
This article summarizes our recent efforts to understand spontaneous quantum vacuum forces and torques, which require that a stationary object be out of thermal equilibrium with the blackbody background radiation. We proceed by a systematic…
We consider a body immersed in a perfect gas, moving under the action of a constant force E along the x axis . We assume the gas to be described by the mean-field approximation and interacting elastically with the body, we study the…
A fascinating effect belonging to the field of vacuum forces and fluctuations is that of quantum friction. It refers to the prediction of a dissipative force acting on a moving object due to the quantum vacuum field. In this work, we…
We investigate the dynamics of test particles undergoing friction forces in a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) spacetime. The interaction with the background fluid is modeled by introducing a Poynting-Robertson-like friction force in the…
I wish to expound a novel perspective of probing universal character of gravity. To begin with, inclusion of zero mass particle in mechanics leads to special relativity while its interaction with a universal force shared by all particles…
According to quantum field theory, empty space -- the ground state of the theory with all real excitations removed -- is not empty at all, but filled with quantum-vacuum fluctuations. Their presence can manifest itself through a series of…
A quantum analog of friction (understood as a completely positive, Markovian, translation-invariant and phenomenological model of dissipation) is known to be in odds with the detailed balance in the thermodynamic limit. We show that this is…
Quantum fluctuations can induce a friction on a neutral but polarizable particle and cause it to radiate energy even if the particle is moving in free space filled with blackbody radiation, and is not in contact with or close to any surface…