2017/11/30 by Wenting Zhou, Lucia Rizzuto, Roberto Passante · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Antisymmetric relation #Atom (system on chip) #Atomic physics #Boundary (topology) #Dipole #Excited state #Field (mathematics) #Ground state #Interaction energy #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Molecule #Physics #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum mechanics #Quantum optics and atomic interactions #Resonance (particle physics) #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physreva.97.042503
published as Phys. Rev. A 97, 042503 (2018) · 13 pages, 12 figures
openalex publication_date 2018/04/13 · arxiv created 2018/04/19 · arxiv updated 2018/04/23 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We investigate the resonance dipole-dipole interaction energy between two identical atoms, one in the ground state and the other in the excited state, interacting with the electromagnetic field in the presence of a perfectly reflecting plane boundary. The atoms are prepared in a correlated (symmetric or antisymmetric) Bell-type state. Following a procedure due to Dalibard et al. [J. Dalibard et al., J. Phys. (Paris) 43, 1617 (1982); J. Phys. (Paris) 45, 637 (1984)], we separate the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction (source) field to the resonance interaction energy between the two atoms and show that only the source field contributes to the interatomic interaction, while vacuum field fluctuations do not. By considering specific geometric configurations of the two-atom system with respect to the mirror and specific choices of dipole orientations, we show that the presence of the mirror significantly affects the resonance interaction energy and that different features appear with respect to the case of atoms in free space, for example, a change in the spatial dependence of the interaction. Our findings also suggest that the presence of a boundary can be exploited to tailor and control the resonance interaction between two atoms, as well as the related energy transfer process. The possibility of observing these phenomena is also discussed.