2006/12/31 by Agnes Sambale, Stefan Yoshi Buhmann, Dirk-Gunnar Welsch +3 · 3 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.75.042109
published as Physical Review A 75 (4), 042109 (2007); Erratum: Physical Review A 76 (4), 029905(E) (2007) · 9 pages, 2 figures, corrections according to erratum
openalex publication_date 2007/04/20 · arxiv created 2008/08/14 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Based on macroscopic quantum electrodynamics in linearly and causally responding media, we study the local-field corrected van der Waals potentials and forces for unpolarized ground-state atoms placed within a magnetoelectric medium of arbitrary size and shape. We start from general expressions for the van der Waals potentials in terms of the (classical) Green tensor of the electromagnetic field and the atomic polarizability and incorporate the local-field correction by means of the real-cavity model. In this context, special emphasis is given to the decomposition of the Green tensor into a medium part multiplied by a global local-field correction factor and, in the single-atom case, a part that only depends on the cavity characteristics. The result is used to derive general formulas for the local-field corrected van der Waals potentials and forces. As an application, we calculate the van der Waals potential between two ground-state atoms placed within magnetoelectric bulk material.