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.
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.
Contemporary experiments in cavity quantum electrodynamics (cavity QED) with gas-phase neutral atoms rely increasingly on laser cooling and optical, magneto-optical or magnetostatic trapping methods to provide atomic localization with sub-micron uncertainty. Difficult to achieve in free space, this goal is further frustrated by atom-surface interactions if the desired atomic placement approaches within several hundred nanometers of a solid surface, as can be the case in setups incorporating monolithic dielectric optical resonators such as microspheres, microtoroids, microdisks or photonic crystal defect cavities. Typically in such scenarios, the smallest atom-surface separation at which the van der Waals interaction can be neglected is taken to be the optimal localization point for associated trapping schemes, but this sort of conservative strategy generally compromises the achievable cavity QED coupling strength. Here we suggest a new approach to the design of optical dipole traps for atom confinement near surfaces that exploits strong surface interactions, rather than avoiding them, and present the results of a numerical study based on $^{39}$K atoms and indium tin oxide (ITO). Our theoretical framework points to the possibility of utilizing nanopatterning methods to engineer novel modifications of atom-surface interactions.
We show that an isotropic dipolar particle in the vicinity of a substrate made of nonreciprocal plasmonic materials can experience a lateral Casimir force and torque when the particles temperature differs from that of the slab and the environment. We connect the existence of the lateral force to the asymmetric dispersion of nonreciprocal surface polaritons and the existence of the lateral torque to the spin-momentum locking of such surface waves. Using the formalism of fluctuational electrodynamics, we show that the features of lateral force and torque should be experimentally observable using a substrate of doped Indium Antimonide (InSb) placed in an external magnetic field, and for a variety of dielectric particles. Interestingly, we also find that the directions of the lateral force and the torque depend on the constituent materials of the particles, which suggests a sorting mechanism based on lateral nonequilibrium Casimir physics.
In this article we analyze the Casimir-Polder interaction of atoms with a solid grating and an additional repulsive interaction between the atoms and the grating in the presence of an external laser source. The combined potential landscape above the solid body is probed locally by diffraction of Bose-Einstein condensates. Measured diffraction efficiencies reveal information about the shape of the Casimir-Polder interaction and allow us to discern between models based on a pairwise-summation (Hamaker) approach and Lifshitz theory.
The distance-dependence of the anisotropic atom-wall interaction is studied. The central result is the 1/z^6 quadrupolar anisotropy decay in the retarded Casimir-Polder regime. Analysis of the transition region between non-retarded van der Waals regime (in 1/z^3) and Casimir-Polder regime shows that the anisotropy cross-over occurs at very short distances from the surface, on the order of 0.03 Lambda, where Lambda is the atom characteristic wavelength. Possible experimental verifications of this distance dependence are discussed.