Erlangen 2022 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 16: Quantum Effects I
Q 16.7: Talk
Tuesday, March 15, 2022, 12:00–12:15, Q-H13
Investigating the Casimir-Polder force in nonplanar geometries — •Bettina Beverungen1, Kurt Busch1,2, and Francesco Intravaia1 — 1Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Institut für Physik, AG Theoretische Optik & Photonik, Newtonstr. 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany — 2Max Born Institute for Nonlinear Optics and Short Pulse Spectroscopy, Max-Born-Str. 2A, 12489 Berlin, Germany
Quantum and thermal fluctuations of the electromagnetic field are responsible for many nontrivial effects such as dispersion forces. One example is the Casimir-Polder force, which describes the interaction between an atom and a macroscopic, electrically neutral object. At short distances, the quantum effects dominate and can be highly relevant to many nanotechnological applications. Since the interaction depends on the system's geometry, this constitutes one possible avenue to influence its behavior.
We focus our investigation on this aspect, using a Green tensor based formalism. The Green tensor characterizes the system's electromagnetic response and encodes the geometry as well as the material properties of the macroscopic object. This information allows us to identify the system's intrinsic characteristics such as relevant length scales and link them to the behavior of the interaction. We perform semi-analytical calculations for different geometries and interpret them in light of the physical system's properties. Furthermore, we perform analytical calculations of various asymptotic limiting cases in order to validate our results. At the same time, this can offer a deeper insight into the underlying physics.