Related papers: Vacuum fluctuations, accelerated motion and confor…
Any quantum system interacting with a complex environment undergoes decoherence. Empty space is filled with vacuum energy due to matter fields in their ground state and represents an underlying environment that any quantum particle has to…
A renewed experimental interest in quantum vacuum fluctuations brings back the need to extend the study of electromagnetic vacuum correlations. Quantum or semi-classical models developed to understand various configurations should combine…
We consider an Unruh-DeWitt detector interacting with a massless Dirac field. Assuming that the detector is moving along an hyperbolic trajectory, we modeled the effects of fluctuations in the event horizon using a Dirac equation with…
We study the fluctuation electromagnetic interaction in a system of two rotating electrically neutral nonmagnetic particles with allowance for relativistic retardation effect. The particles are assumed to have different temperatures being…
We consider a system consisting of a quantum, massless, real scalar field, in the presence of nonlinear mirrors: infinite parallel planes, upon which the field satisfies nonlinear boundary conditions. The latter are implemented by…
Optical tweezers allow the measurement of fluctuations at the nano-scale, in particular fluctuations in the end-to-end distance in single molecules. Fluctuation spectra can yield valuable information, but they can easily be contaminated by…
Vacuum fluctuations play a central role in spontaneous emission. Recently, it has been suggested that these fluctuations could also be fundamental in the absorption dynamics, breaking the superposition inherent to the linear quantum…
Vacuum fluctuations can obscure the detection signal of the measurement of the smallest quantum objects like single particles seemingly implying a fundamental limit to measurement accuracy. However, as we show relativistic invariance…
We review recent progress in the field of optomechanics, where one studies the effects of radiation on mechanical motion. The paradigmatic example is an optical cavity with a movable mirror, where the radiation pressure can induce cooling,…
We investigate the effect of time-dependent boundary conditions on the dynamics of a quantum bouncer -- a particle falling in a homogeneous gravitational field on a moving mirror. We examine more particularly the way a moving mirror…
The problem of relativity of motion in quantum vacuum is addressed by considering a cavity moving in vacuum in a monodimensional space. The cavity is an open system which emits photons when it oscillates in vacuum. Qualitatively new effects…
We calculate the flux from a spherical mirror which is expanding or contracting with nearly uniform acceleration. We find that the flux at an exterior point (which could in principle be a functional of the mirror's past history) is actually…
Gravitons in a squeezed vacuum state, the natural result of quantum creation in the early universe or by black holes, will introduce metric fluctuations. These metric fluctuations will introduce fluctuations of the lightcone. It is shown…
The radiation pressure coupling with vacuum fluctuations gives rise to energy damping and decoherence of an oscillating particle. Both effects result from the emission of pairs of photons, a quantum effect related to the fluctuations of the…
The analogy between black hole radiation and accelerating mirror radiation (the dynamical Casimir effect) is particularly strong for mirror trajectories giving rise to a constant thermal flux of particles. We present new ways to achieve…
Frequency-dependent gravitational lens effects are found for trajectories of electromagnetic rays passing through a distribution of plasma near a massive object. Ray propagation through plasma adds extra terms to the equations of motion…
The optical Faraday effect describes the rotation of linear polarization upon propagation through a medium in the presence of a longitudinal magnetic field. The effect arises from a different phase delay between the right and left handed…
We propose a set of devices of simple geometrical design which may exhibit a permanent rotation due to quantum (vacuum) fluctuations. These objects - which have no moving parts - impose certain boundary conditions on quantum fluctuations…
In analyzing the nature of thermal radiance experienced by an accelerated observer (Unruh effect), an eternal black hole (Hawking effect) and in certain types of cosmological expansion, one of us proposed a unifying viewpoint that these can…
We consider a semiconductor in a non-equilibrium steady state, with a dc current. On top of the stationary carrier motion there are fluctuations. It is shown that the stationary motion of the carriers (i.e., their drift) can have a profound…