Non-additive dynamical Casimir atomic phases

Abstract

We discuss a fundamental property of open quantum systems: the quantum phases associated with their dynamical evolution are non-additive. We develop our argument by considering a multiple-path atom interferometer in the vicinity of a perfectly conducting plate. The coupling with the environment induces dynamical corrections to the atomic phases. In the specific example of a Casimir interaction, these corrections reflect the interplay between field retardation effects and the external atomic motion. Non-local open-system Casimir phase corrections are shown to be non-additive, which follows directly from the unseparability of the influence functional describing the coupling of the atomic waves to their environment. This is an unprecedented feature in atom optics, which may be used in order to isolate non-local dynamical Casimir phases from the standard quasi-static Casimir contributions.

5 pages, 2 Figures. Final version published in Journal of Physics B

References in corpus (7)

• Atom Interferometers
• Geometric nature of the environment-induced Berry phase and geometric dephasing
• Geometric phases in open systems: an exact model to study how they are corrected by decoherence
• Nonequilibrium Atom-Dielectric Forces Mediated by a Quantum Field
• Non-local double-path Casimir phase in atom interferometers
• The theory of quantum levitators
• Dynamical aspects of atom interferometry in an optical lattice in proximity of a surface

Cited by in corpus (7)

• Microscopic dynamical Casimir effect
• Quantum Vacuum Sagnac Effect
• Dynamical local and non-local Casimir atomic phases
• Geometric phase corrections on a moving particle in front of a dielectric mirror
• Dynamical Casimir effects with atoms: from the emission of photon pairs to geometric phases
• Decoherence by spontaneous emission: a single-atom analog of superradiance
• Decoherence and collective effects in critical media