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Quantum friction in the presence of a perfectly conducting plate

Xin Guo1,*, Kimball A. Milton1,†, Gerard Kennedy2,‡, and Nima Pourtolami3,§

  • 1H. L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019, USA
  • 2School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom
  • 3National Bank of Canada, Montreal, Quebec H3B 4S9, Canada

  • *guoxinmike@ou.edu
  • †kmilton@ou.edu
  • ‡g.kennedy@soton.ac.uk
  • §nima.pourtolami@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. A 107, 062812 – Published 14 June, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.107.062812

Abstract

A neutral but polarizable particle at rest near a perfectly conducting plate feels a force normal to the surface of the plate, which tends to pull the particle towards the plate. This is the well-known Casimir-Polder force, which has long been theoretically proposed and experimentally observed. In this paper, we explore the transverse frictional force on an atom moving uniformly parallel to a perfectly conducting plate. Although many theoretical predictions can be found for the quantum friction on a particle moving above an imperfect surface, the extreme situation with a perfectly conducting plate seems to have been largely unaddressed by the theoretical community. We investigate this ideal case as a natural extension of our previous work on quantum vacuum friction, and conclude that there does exist a quantum frictional force on an atom moving above a perfectly conducting plate, which we will abbreviate by PCQF. Like quantum vacuum friction, PCQF arises from the interaction between the particle and the surrounding blackbody radiation. But, the behavior of PCQF differs from the quantum vacuum friction in that the vacuum fields are modified by the perfectly conducting plate. Very interestingly, the distance dependence, the temperature dependence, and even the sign of the frictional force can depend on the polarization state of the atom. For an isotropic atom with a static polarizability, the resultant frictional force is found to be negative definite and therefore remains a true drag. Just above the surface of the plate, the magnitude of the frictional force is twice that of the quantum vacuum friction in the absence of the plate.

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Outline

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Phys. Rev. A 107, 062812– Published 14 June, 2023
  • Received 5 March 2023
  • Accepted 10 May 2023
Article part of CHORUS
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