Attractive Optical Forces from Blackbody Radiation

Abstract

Blackbody radiation around hot objects induces ac Stark shifts of the energy levels of nearby atoms and molecules. These shifts are roughly proportional to the fourth power of the temperature and induce a force decaying with the third power of the distance from the object. We explicitly calculate the resulting attractive blackbody optical dipole force for ground state hydrogen atoms. Surprisingly, this force can surpass the repulsive radiation pressure and actually pull the atoms against the radiation energy flow towards the surface with a force stronger than gravity. We exemplify the dominance of the "blackbody force" over gravity for hydrogen in a cloud of hot dust particles. This overlooked force appears relevant in various astrophysical scenarios, in particular, since analogous results hold for a wide class of other broadband radiation sources.

References in corpus (5)

• Measurement of the Temperature Dependence of the Casimir-Polder Force
• Multipolar theory of black-body radiation shift of atomic energy levels and its implications for optical lattice clocks
• New asymptotic behaviour of the surface-atom force out of thermal equilibrium
• Frequency shift of cesium clock transition due to blackbody radiation
• Reexamining Black-Body Shifts for Hydrogenlike Ions

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• Optical binding with cold atoms
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• On Effective Spacetime Dimension in the Hořava-Lifshitz Gravity
• Tailored long range forces on polarizable particles by collective scattering of broadband radiation
• Dependence of the Black-body Force on Spacetime Geometry and Topology
• Bose-Einstein condensates in microgravity and fundamental tests of gravity