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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Long-Range Tails In Van Der Waals Interactions Of Excited-State And Ground-State Atoms, Ulrich D. Jentschura, V. Debierre
Long-Range Tails In Van Der Waals Interactions Of Excited-State And Ground-State Atoms, Ulrich D. Jentschura, V. Debierre
Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works
A quantum electrodynamic calculation of the interaction of an excited-state atom with a ground-state atom is performed. For an excited reference state and a lower-lying virtual state, the contribution to the interaction energy naturally splits into a pole term and a Wick-rotated term. The pole term is shown to dominate in the long-range limit, altering the functional form of the interaction from the retarded 1/R7 Casimir-Polder form to a long-range tail - provided by the Wick-rotated term - proportional to cos[2(Em - En)R/(ħc)]/R2, where Em < En is the energy of a virtual state, …
Virtual Resonant Emission And Oscillatory Long-Range Tails In Van Der Waals Interactions Of Excited States: Qedtreatment And Applications, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Chandra Mani Adhikari, Vincent Debierre
Virtual Resonant Emission And Oscillatory Long-Range Tails In Van Der Waals Interactions Of Excited States: Qedtreatment And Applications, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Chandra Mani Adhikari, Vincent Debierre
Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works
We report on a quantum electrodynamic (QED) investigation of the interaction between a ground state atom with another atom in an excited state. General expressions, applicable to any atom, are indicated for the long-range tails that are due to virtual resonant emission and absorption into and from vacuum modes whose frequency equals the transition frequency to available lower-lying atomic states. For identical atoms, one of which is in an excited state, we also discuss the mixing term that depends on the symmetry of the two-atom wave function (these evolve into either the gerade or the ungerade state for close approach), …