Casimir-Polder-like force on an atom outside a Schwarzschild black hole

Abstract

We calculate, in the framework of open quantum systems, the ground state energy-level shift for a static two-level atom outside a spherically symmetric black hole in interaction with fluctuating massless scalar fields in the Boulware and Unruh vacuums. We find that the energy-level shift is position-dependent and thus gives rise to a force on the atom besides the classical gravitational force. For the case of the Boulware vacuum which represents a star that has not collapsed through its event horizon, this force is attractive near the horizon and is repulsive far away from the black hole with a behavior of $r^{-3}$ . For the case of the Unruh vacuum which represents a radiating black hole, we find that the contribution to the Casimir-Polder-like force due to the presence of Hawking radiation is always attractive and, remarkably, this attractive force diverges at the event horizon.

typos corrected, version to be published in PRA

References in corpus (2)

• Position dependent energy level shifts of an accelerated atom in the presence of a boundary
• Open quantum system approach to Gibbons-Hawking effect of de Sitter space-time

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Qubits on the Horizon: Decoherence and Thermalization near Black Holes
• Qubit Heating Near a Hotspot
• Thermal and nonthermal scaling of the Casimir-Polder interaction in a black hole spacetime
• Quantum thermal field fluctuation induced corrections to the interaction between two ground-state atoms
• Atom-field dynamics in curved spacetime
• Influence Through Mixing: Hotspots as Benchmarks for Basic Black-Hole Behaviour