van der Waals Interaction Energy Between Two Atoms Moving With Uniform Acceleration

Abstract

We consider the interatomic van der Waals interaction energy between two neutral ground-state atoms moving in the vacuum space with the same uniform acceleration. We assume the acceleration orthogonal to their separation, so that their mutual distance remains constant. Using a model for the van der Waals dispersion interaction based on the interaction between the instantaneous atomic dipole moments, which are induced and correlated by the zero-point field fluctuations, we evaluate the interaction energy between the two accelerating atoms in terms of quantities expressed in the laboratory reference frame. We find that the dependence of the van der Waals interaction between the atoms from the distance is different with respect to the case of atoms at rest, and the relation of our results with the Unruh effect is discussed. We show that in the near zone a new term proportional to $R^{-5}$ adds to the usual $R^{-6}$ behavior, and in the far zone a term proportional to $R^{-6}$ adds to the usual $R^{-7}$ behavior, making the interaction of a longer range. We also find that the interaction energy is time-dependent, and the physical meaning of this result is discussed. In particular, we find acceleration-dependent corrections to the $R^{-7}$ (far zone) and $R^{-6}$ (near zone) proportional to $a^2{t}^2/c^2$; this suggests that significant changes to the van der Waals interaction between the atoms could be obtained if sufficiently long times are taken, without necessity of the extremely high accelerations required by other known manifestations of the Unruh effect.

9 pages

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Cited by in corpus (15)

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• Resonance interaction energy between two accelerated identical atoms in a coaccelerated frame and the Unruh effect
• Dispersion Interactions between Neutral Atoms and the Quantum Electrodynamical Vacuum
• Vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction contributions to the resonance dipole-dipole interaction between two atoms near a reflecting boundary
• Nonextensive Tsallis statistics in Unruh effect for Dirac neutrinos
• Resonance energy transfer between two atoms in a conducting cylindrical waveguide
• Resonance dipole-dipole interaction between two accelerated atoms in the presence of a reflecting plane boundary
• Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect for accelerated two-level single and entangled atomic systems
• Van der Waals and resonance interactions between accelerated atoms in vacuum and the Unruh effect
• Quantum thermal field fluctuation induced corrections to the interaction between two ground-state atoms
• Hydrogen atom wave function and eigen energy in the Rindler space
• Effects of a uniform acceleration on atom-field interactions
• Atom-field dynamics in curved spacetime
• Single and entangled atomic systems in thermal bath and the Fulling-Davies-Unruh effect