No Arabic abstract
We extend a previous result [Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 090403 (2010)] on Casimir repulsion between a plate with a hole and a cylinder centered above it to geometries in which the central object can no longer be treated as a point dipole. We show through numerical calculations that as the distance between the plate and central object decreases, there is an intermediate regime in which the repulsive force increases dramatically. Beyond this, the force rapidly switches over to attraction as the separation decreases further to zero, in line with the proximity force approximation. We demonstrate that this effect can be understood as a competition between an increased repulsion due to a larger polarizability of the central object interacting with increased fringing fields near the edge of the plate, and attractive forces due primarily to the nonzero thickness of the plate. In comparison with our previous work, we find that using the same plate geometry but replacing the single cylinder with a ring of cylinders, or more generally an extended uniaxial conductor, the repulsive force can be enhanced by a factor of approximately $10^3$. We conclude that this enhancement, although quite dramatic, is still too small to yield detectable repulsive Casimir forces.
In this paper we study an archetypical scenario in which repulsive Casimir-Polder forces between an atom or molecule and two macroscopic bodies can be achieved. This is an extension of previous studies of the interaction between a polarizable atom and a wedge, in which repulsion occurs if the atom is sufficiently anisotropic and close enough to the symmetry plane of the wedge. A similar repulsion occurs if such an atom passes a thin cylinder or a wire. An obvious extension is to compute the interaction between such an atom and two facing wedges, which includes as a special case the interaction of an atom with a conducting screen possessing a slit, or between two parallel wires. To this end we further extend the electromagnetic multiple-scattering formalism for three-body interactions. To test this machinery we reinvestigate the interaction of a polarizable atom between two parallel conducting plates. In that case, three-body effects are shown to be small, and are dominated by three- and four-scattering terms. The atom-wedge calculation is illustrated by an analogous scalar situation, described in the Appendix. The wedge-wedge-atom geometry is difficult to analyze because this is a scale-free problem. But it is not so hard to investigate the three-body corrections to the interaction between an anisotropic atom or nanoparticle and a pair of parallel conducting cylinders, and show that the three-body effects are very small and do not affect the Casimir-Polder repulsion at large distances between the cylinders. Finally, we consider whether such highly anisotropic atoms needed for repulsion are practically realizable. Since this appears rather difficult to accomplish, it may be more feasible to observe such effects with highly anisotropic nano particles.
We compute the interaction energies of a two-atom system placed in the middle of a perfectly reflecting planar cavity, in the perturbative regime. Explicit expressions are provided for the van der Waals potentials of two polarisable atomic dipoles as well as for the electrostatic potential of two induced dipoles. For the van der Waals potentials, several scenarios are considered, namely, a pair of atoms in their ground states, a pair of atoms both excited, and a pair of dissimilar atoms with one of them excited. In addition, the corresponding phase-shift of the two-atom wavefunction is calculated in each case. The effects of the two-dimensional confinement of the electromagnetic field by the cavity are analyzed in each scenario.
The dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) is the production of photons by the amplification of vacuum fluctuations. In this paper we demonstrate new resonance conditions in DCE that potentially allow the production of optical photons when the mechanical frequency is smaller than the lowest frequency of the cavity field. We consider a cavity with one mirror fixed and the other allowed to oscillate. In order to identify the region where production of photons takes place, we do a linear stability analysis and investigate the dynamic stability of the system under small fluctuations. By using a numerical solution of the Heisenberg equations of motion, the time evolution of the number of photons produced in the unstable region is studied.
We investigate the control landscapes of closed, finite level quantum systems beyond the dipole approximation by including a polarizability term in the Hamiltonian. Theoretical analysis is presented for the $n$ level case and formulas for singular controls, which are candidates for landscape traps, are compared to their analogues in the dipole approximation. A numerical analysis of the existence of traps in control landscapes beyond the dipole approximation is made in the four level case. A numerical exploration of these control landscapes is achieved by generating many random Hamiltonians which include a term quadratic in a single control field. The landscapes of such systems are found numerically to be trap free in general. This extends a great body of recent work on typical landscapes of quantum systems where the dipole approximation is made. We further investigate the relationship between the magnitude of the polarizability and the magnitude of the controls resulting from optimization. It is shown numerically that including a polarizability term in an otherwise uncontrollable system removes traps from the landscapes of a specific family of systems by restoring controllability. We numerically assess the effect of a random polarizability term on the know example of a three level system with a second order trap in its control landscape. It is found that the addition of polarizability removes the trap from the landscape. The implications for laboratory control are discussed.
Interaction with a thermal environment decoheres the quantum state of a mechanical oscillator. When the interaction is sufficiently strong, such that more than one thermal phonon is introduced within a period of oscillation, quantum coherent oscillations are prevented. This is generally thought to preclude a wide range of quantum protocols. Here, we introduce a pulsed optomechanical protocol that allows ground state cooling, general linear quantum non-demolition measurements, optomechanical state swaps, and quantum state preparation and tomography without requiring quantum coherent oscillations. Finally we show how the protocol can break the usual thermal limit for sensing of impulse forces.