Abstract
Phenomenologically important quantum dissipative processes include blackbody friction (an atom absorbs counterpropagating blueshifted photons and spontaneously emits them in all directions, losing kinetic energy) and noncontact van der Waals friction (in the vicinity of a dielectric surface, the mirror charges of the constituent particles inside the surface experience drag, slowing the atom). The theoretical predictions for these processes are modified upon a rigorous quantum electrodynamic treatment, which shows that the one-loop "correction" yields the dominant contribution to the off-resonant, gauge-invariant, imaginary part of the atom's polarizability at room temperature, for typical atom-surface interactions. The tree-level contribution to the polarizability dominates at high temperature.
Recommended Citation
U. D. Jentschura et al., "One-Loop Dominance in the Imaginary Part of the Polarizability: Application to Blackbody and Noncontact Van Der Waals Friction," Physical Review Letters, vol. 114, no. 4, pp. 043001-1 - 043001-6, American Physical Society (APS), Jan 2015.
The definitive version is available at https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.043001
Department(s)
Physics
Keywords and Phrases
Electrodynamics; Friction; Kinetic Energy; Kinetics; Polarization; Quantum Electronics; Tribology; Van Der Waals Forces; Counterpropagating; Dielectric Surface; Dissipative Process; Dominant Contributions; Quantum Electrodynamics; Room Temperature; Surface Interactions; Van Der Waals Friction; Atoms
International Standard Serial Number (ISSN)
0031-9007
Document Type
Article - Journal
Document Version
Final Version
File Type
text
Language(s)
English
Rights
© 2015 American Physical Society (APS), All rights reserved.
Publication Date
01 Jan 2015
