Direct Measurement of intermediate-range Casimir-Polder potentials

Abstract

We present the first direct measurements of Casimir-Polder forces between solid surfaces and atomic gases in the transition regime between the electrostatic short-distance and the retarded long-distance limit. The experimental method is based on ultracold ground-state Rb atoms that are reflected from evanescent wave barriers at the surface of a dielectric glass prism. Our novel approach does not require assumptions about the potential shape. The experimental data confirm the theoretical prediction in the transition regime.

4 pages, 3 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Measurement of the Temperature Dependence of the Casimir-Polder Force
• Quantum reflection of helium atom beams from a microstructured grating

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