2013/07/31 by C. D. Fosco, Fernando C. Lombardo, F. C. Lombardo +4
Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics #Classical mechanics #Dissipative system #Mirror image #Optics #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum mechanics #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.88.105004
8 pages, 2 figures. Minor changes, version to be published in Phys. Rev. D
arxiv created 2013/10/25 · openalex publication_date 2013/11/05 · arxiv updated 2015/06/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study quantum dissipative effects due to the accelerated motion of a single, imperfect, zero-width mirror. It is assumed that the microscopic degrees of freedom on the mirror are confined to it, like in plasma or graphene sheets. Therefore, the mirror is described by a vacuum polarization tensor \ensuremathΠ_\ensuremathα\ensuremathβ concentrated on a time-dependent surface. Under certain assumptions about the microscopic model for the mirror, we obtain a rather general expression for the Euclidean effective action, a functional of the time-dependent mirror's position, in terms of two invariants that characterize the tensor \ensuremathΠ_\ensuremathα\ensuremathβ. The final result can be written in terms of the TE and TM reflection coefficients of the mirror, with qualitatively different contributions coming from them. We apply that general expression to derive the imaginary part of the ``in-out'' effective action, which measures dissipative effects induced by the mirror's motion, in different models, in particular for an accelerated graphene sheet.