No Arabic abstract
The noncontact (van der Waals) friction is an interesting physical effect which has been the subject of controversial scientific discussion. The direct friction term due to the thermal fluctuations of the electromagnetic field leads to a friction force proportional to 1/Z^5 where Z is the atom-wall distance). The backaction friction term takes into account the feedback of thermal fluctuations of the atomic dipole moment onto the motion of the atom and scales as 1/Z^8. We investigate noncontact friction effects for the interactions of hydrogen, ground-state helium and metastable helium atoms with alpha-quartz (SiO_2), gold (Au) and calcium difluorite (CaF_2). We find that the backaction term dominates over the direct term induced by the thermal electromagnetic fluctuations inside the material, over wide distance ranges. The friction coefficients obtained for gold are smaller than those for SiO_2 and CaF_2 by several orders of magnitude.
We investigate the influence of spatial dispersion on atom-surface quantum friction. We show that for atom-surface separations shorter than the carriers mean free path within the material, the frictional force can be several orders of magnitude larger than that predicted by local optics. In addition, when taking into account spatial dispersion effects, we show that the commonly used local thermal equilibrium approximation underestimates by approximately 95% the drag force, obtained by employing the recently reported nonequilibrium fluctuation-dissipation relation for quantum friction. Unlike the treatment based on local optics, spatial dispersion in conjunction with corrections to local thermal equilibrium not only change the magnitude but also the distance scaling of quantum friction.
Tailoring the interactions between quantum emitters and single photons constitutes one of the cornerstones of quantum optics. Coupling a quantum emitter to the band edge of a photonic crystal waveguide (PCW) provides a unique platform for tuning these interactions. In particular, the crossover from propagating fields $E(x) propto e^{pm ik_x x}$ outside the bandgap to localized fields $E(x) propto e^{-kappa_x |x|}$ within the bandgap should be accompanied by a transition from largely dissipative atom-atom interactions to a regime where dispersive atom-atom interactions are dominant. Here, we experimentally observe this transition for the first time by shifting the band edge frequency of the PCW relative to the $rm D_1$ line of atomic cesium for $bar{N}=3.0pm 0.5$ atoms trapped along the PCW. Our results are the initial demonstration of this new paradigm for coherent atom-atom interactions with low dissipation into the guided mode.
The motion-induced drag force acting on a particle moving parallel to an arrangement of $N$ objects is analyzed. Particular focus is placed on the nonequilibrium statistics of the interaction and on the interplay between the systems geometry and the different dissipative processes occurring in realistic setups. We show that the drag force can exhibit a markedly nonadditive enhancement with respect to the corresponding additive approximation. The specific case of a planar cavity -- a relevant configuration for many experiments -- is calculated, showing an enhancement of about one order of magnitude. This and similar configurations are of significant potential interest for future measurements that aim to detect the drag force.
We report measurements of noncontact friction between surfaces of NbSe$_{2}$ and SrTiO$_{3}$, and a sharp Pt-Ir tip that is oscillated laterally by a quartz tuning fork cantilever. At 4.2 K, the friction coefficients on both the metallic and insulating materials show a giant maximum at the tip-surface distance of several nanometers. The maximum is strongly correlated with an increase in the spring constant of the cantilever. These features can be understood phenomenologically by a distance-dependent relaxation mechanism with distributed time scales.
Results from higher order mean field calculations of light interacting with atom arrays are presented for calculations of one- and two-time expectation values. The atoms are approximated as two-levels and are fixed in space. Calculations were performed for mean field approximations that include the expectation value of one operator (mean field), two operators (mean field-2), and three operators (mean field-3). For the one-time expectation values, we examined three different situations to understand the convergence with increasing order of mean field and some limitations of higher order mean field approximations. As a representation of a two-time expectation value, we calculated the $g^{(2)}(tau )$ for a line of atoms illuminated by a perpendicular plane wave at several emission angles and two different intensities. For many cases, the mean field-2 will be sufficiently accurate to quantitatively predict the response of the atoms as measured by one-time expectation values. However, the mean field-3 approximation will often be needed for two-time expectation values.