The long-range interaction between two atoms and the long-range interaction between an ion and an electron are compared at small and large intersystem separations. The vacuum dressed atom formalism is applied and found to provide a framework for interpretation of the similarities between the two cases. The van der Waals forces or Casimir-Polder potentials are used to obtain insight into relativistic and higher multipolar terms.
Experimental methods and procedures required for precision measurements of the Casimir force are presented. In particular, the best practices for obtaining stable cantilevers, calibration of the cantilever, correction of thermal and mechanical drift, measuring the contact separation, sphere radius and the roughness are discussed.
We discuss a fundamental property of open quantum systems: the quantum phases associated with their dynamical evolution are non-additive. We develop our argument by considering a multiple-path atom interferometer in the vicinity of a perfectly conducting plate. The coupling with the environment induces dynamical corrections to the atomic phases. In the specific example of a Casimir interaction, these corrections reflect the interplay between field retardation effects and the external atomic motion. Non-local open-system Casimir phase corrections are shown to be non-additive, which follows dire…
We consider the resonant Casimir-Polder interaction of an excited alkali-type atom which has a single (electric dipole) transition with a Chern insulator. The Chern insulator has a nonzero, time reversal symmetry breaking Hall conductance, leading to an additional contribution to the resonant Casimir-Polder interaction which depends on the coupling between the Hall conductance and the circular polarization state of the atomic transition. We find that the resonant Casimir-Polder shift can be significantly enhanced for de-excitation frequencies near values associated with the van Hove singularit…
We propose a scheme to actively cool the fundamental flexural (out-of-plane) mode of a graphene sheet via vacuum forces. Our setup consists in a cold atom cloud placed close to a graphene sheet at distances of a few micrometers. The atoms couple to the graphene membrane via Casimir-Polder forces. By deriving a self-consistent set of equations governing the dynamics of the atomic gas and the flexural modes of the graphene, we show to be possible to cool graphene from room temperatures by actively (laser) cooling an atomic gas. By choosing the right set of experimental parameter we are able to c…
We present the first direct measurements of Casimir-Polder forces between solid surfaces and atomic gases in the transition regime between the electrostatic short-distance and the retarded long-distance limit. The experimental method is based on ultracold ground-state Rb atoms that are reflected from evanescent wave barriers at the surface of a dielectric glass prism. Our novel approach does not require assumptions about the potential shape. The experimental data confirm the theoretical prediction in the transition regime.
The temperature dependence of the Casimir-Polder interaction addresses fundamental issues for understanding vacuum and thermal fluctuations. It is highly sensitive to surface waves which, in the near field, govern the thermal emission of a hot surface. Here we use optical reflection spectroscopy to monitor the atom-surface interaction between a Cs*(7D3/2) atom and a hot sapphire surface at a distance ~ 100 nm. In our experiments, that explore a large range of temperatures (500-1000K) the hot surface is at thermal equilibrium with the vacuum. The observed increase of the interaction with temper…
We investigate the temperature dependence of the Casimir-Polder interaction in the electrostatic limit. This unusual phenomenon relies on the coupling between a virtual atomic transition and a thermal excitation of surface polariton modes. We first focus on the scenario where a Cs(8P3/2) atom is next to a CaF2 or a BaF2 surface. Our theoretical predictions show a strong temperature dependence of the van der Waals coefficient at experimentally accessible conditions. A series of spectroscopic measurements performed in a specially designed Cs vapour cell containing a CaF2 tube is presented. Our r…
We present a four-mode model that describes coherent photo-association (PA) in a double-well Bose-Einstein condensate, focusing on the $average$ molecular populations in certain parameters. Our numerical results predict an interesting strong-damping effect of molecular oscillations by controlling the particle tunnellings and PA light strength, which may provide a promising way for creating a stable molecular condensate via coherent PA in a magnetic double-well potential.
We present a quantum open system theory of atom interferometers evolving in the quantized electromagnetic field bounded by an ideal conductor. Our treatment reveals an unprecedented feature of matter-wave propagation, namely the appearance of a non-local double-path phase coherence. Such a non-local phase arises from the coarse-graining over the quantized electromagnetic field and internal atomic degrees of freedom, yielding a non-Hamiltonian evolution of the atomic waves moving in presence of correlated quantum dipole and field fluctuations. We develop a diagrammatic interpretation of this ph…
When the atoms of a dimer remain most of the time very far apart, in so-called long-range molecular states, their mutual interaction is ruled by plain atomic properties. The high-resolution spectroscopic study of some molecular excited states populated by photoassociation of cold atoms (photoassociative spectroscopy) gives a good illustration of this property. It provides accurate determinations of atomic radiative lifetimes, which are known to be sensitive tests for atomic calculations. A number of such analyses has been performed up to now, for all stable alkali atoms and for some other atom…
Sources of uncertainty are reviewed for calculated atomic and molecular data that are important for plasma modeling: atomic and molecular structure and cross sections for electron-atom, electron-molecule, and heavy particle collisions. We concentrate on model uncertainties due to approximations to the fundamental many-body quantum mechanical equations and we aim to provide guidelines to estimate uncertainties as a routine part of computations of data for structure and scattering.
We consider an atom in its ground state undergoing a non-relativistic oscillation in free space. The interaction with the electromagnetic quantum vacuum leads to two effects to leading order in perturbation theory. When the mechanical frequency is larger than the atomic transition frequency, the dominant effect is the motion-induced transition to an excited state with the emission of a photon carrying the excess energy. We compute the angular distribution of emitted photons and the excitation rate. On the other hand, when the mechanical frequency is smaller than the transition frequency, the l…
We take a closer look at the fundamental Casimir-Polder interaction between quantum particles and dispersive dielectric surfaces with surface polariton or plasmon resonances. Linear response theory shows that in the near field, van der Waals, regime the free energy shift of a particle contains a thermal component that depends exclusively on the population/excitation of the evanescent surface polariton/plasmon modes. Our work makes evident the link between particle surface interaction and near field thermal emission and demonstrates how this can be used to engineer Casimir-Polder forces. We als…
Diffraction of matter-waves is an important demonstration of the fact that objects in nature possess a mixture of particle-like and wave-like properties. Unlike in the case of light diffraction, matter-waves are subject to a vacuum-mediated interaction with diffraction obstacles. Here we present a detailed account of this effect through the calculation of the attractive Casimir-Polder potential between a dielectric sphere and an atomic beam. Furthermore, we use our calculated potential to make predictions about the diffraction patterns to be observed in an ongoing experiment where a beam of in…
Constrained molecular dynamics(CoMD) model, previously introduced for nuclear dynamics, has been extended to the atomic structure and collision calculations. Quantum effects corresponding to the Pauli and Heisenberg principle are enforced by constraints, in a parameter-free way. Our calculations for small atomic system, H, He, Li, Be, F reproduce the ground-state binding energies within 3%, compared with the results of quantum mechanical Hartree-Fock calculations.
Metamaterials are fascinating tools that can structure not only surface plasmons and electromagnetic waves but also electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations. The possibility of shaping the quantum vacuum is a powerful concept that ultimately allows engineering the interaction between macroscopic surfaces and quantum emitters such as atoms, molecules or quantum dots. The long-range atom-surface interaction, known as Casimir-Polder interaction, is of fundamental importance in quantum electrodynamics but also attracts a significant interest for platforms that interface atoms with nanophotonic devices.…
Interactions induced by electromagnetic fluctuations, such as van der Waals and Casimir forces, are of universal nature present at any length scale between any types of systems with finite dimensions. Such interactions are important not only for the fundamental science of materials behavior, but also for the design and improvement of micro- and nano-structured devices. In the past decade, many new materials have become available, which has stimulated the need of understanding their dispersive interactions. The field of van der Waals and Casimir forces has experienced an impetus in terms of dev…
This editorial introduces the J. Phys. B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics Special Issue "Atomic and Molecular Processes in the Ultracold Regime, the Chemical Regime and Astrophysics" dedicated to Professor Alexander Dalgarno (1928-2015). After a brief biographical review, short summaries of the contributed papers and their relations to some of Prof. Dalgarno's work are given.
We describe an inexpensive instructional experiment that demonstrates the rotational energy levels of diatomic nitrogen, using the emission band spectrum of molecular nitrogen ionized by various processes in a commercial AC capillary discharge tube. The simple setup and analytical procedure is introduced as part of a sequence of educational experiments employed by a course of advanced atomic and molecular spectroscopy, where the study of rotational spectra is combined with the analysis of vibrational characteristics for a multifaceted picture of the quantum states of diatomic molecules.
