Thermal Casimir vs Casimir-Polder forces: Equilibrium and non-equilibrium forces

Abstract

We critically discuss the common belief that the thermal Casimir-Polder force can always be represented as a Matsubara sum, as it is true for the Casimir force. On the contrary, an exact treatment of the atom-field coupling reveals that for a ground-state atom, terms associated with virtual-photon absorption contribute to the force which are identified as a signature of non-equilibrium dynamics. Even the equilibrium force on a thermalized atom or molecule may be overestimated when using the ground-state polarizability instead of its thermal counterpart.

5 pages, 0 figures, minor additions

References in corpus (5)

• New asymptotic behaviour of the surface-atom force out of thermal equilibrium
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• Thermal correction to the Casimir force, radiative heat transfer, and an experiment
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