Fulling–Davies–Unruh effect and spontaneous excitation of an accelerated atom interacting with a quantum scalar field

2007/01/06 by Zhiying Zhu, Hongwei Yu · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #gr-qc #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.physletb.2006.12.068

published as Phys.Lett.B645:459-465,2007 · 12 pages, no figures, accepted for publication in PLB

arxiv created 2007/01/06 · openalex publication_date 2007/01/17 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/02

Abstract

We investigate, from the point of view of a coaccelerated frame, the spontaneous excitation of a uniformly accelerated two-level atom interacting with a scalar field in a thermal state at a finite temperature T and show that the same spontaneous excitation rate for the uniformly accelerated atom in the Minkowski vacuum obtained in the inertial frame can only be recovered in the coaccelerated frame assuming a thermal bath at the Fulling–Davies–Unruh temperature TFDU=a/2π for what appears to be the Minkowski vacuum to the inertial observer. Our discussion provides another example of a physical process different from those examined before in the literature to better understand the Fulling–Davies–Unruh effect.

Citations

• Vacuum fluctuations and Brownian motion of a charged test particle near a reflecting boundary
• What happens when an accelerating observer detects a Rindler particle

Cited by

• The Unruh effect and its applications
• Thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime and spontaneous excitation of atoms
• Thermal and Nonthermal Signatures of the Unruh Effect in Casimir-Polder Forces