Mainz 2017 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 3: Quantum Effects: QED I

Q 3.5: Vortrag

Montag, 6. März 2017, 15:30–15:45, P 4

Casimir-Polder Interaction across Timescales — •Juliane Klatt and Stefan Yoshi Buhmann — Physikalisches Institut, Albert-Ludwigs-Universität, Freiburg

Casimir-Polder interaction is the fluctuation-mediated interplay between a neutral but polarizable microscopic object, e.g. an atom, on the one hand and a macroscopic body on the other. For an atom at rest, the three most common approaches to describing such interaction - perturbation theory, Markovian master equations and linear response theory - yield compatible results. For an atom moving relative to the macroscopic body, however, the predictions of these three methods strongly disagree.

This discrepancy can be attributed to incompatible assumptions regarding the power spectra as implied by the aforementioned approaches, which in turn is a manifestation of the mutually exclusive temporal regimes to which the seemingly contradicting results apply. The different Casimir-Polder dynamics in these temporal regimes can be understood in analogy to the observation that the spontaneous decay of an excited atom in free space undergoes three, qualitatively distinct, phases - Gaussian decay, exponential decay and powerlaw decay - each of which can be reproduced by the corresponding method, i.e. perturbation theory, Markovian master equations and linear response, respectively.

We here employ time-convolutionless projection operator techniques in order to develop a comprehensive description of Casimir-Polder interaction across all timescales.