Casimir-Polder induced Rabi oscillations

Abstract

We show that the Casimir-Polder interaction may induce coherent oscillations between degenerate atomic states. We illustrate this effect by computing the Casimir-Polder induced Rabi frequency on a ${}^{87}$Rb atom as it interacts with a reflecting surface. The atom oscillates between two Zeeman sublevels of its ground state undergoing a periodic exchange of angular momentum with the vacuum photons.

arXiv commentminor corrections made to agree with the published version

References in corpus (5)

• Loss and heating of particles in small and noisy traps
• Casimir-Polder forces: A non-perturbative approach
• Radiative lifetime measurements of rubidium Rydberg states
• Electromagnetic vacuum of complex media II: the Lamb shift and the total vacuum energy
• Zeeman shift of an electron trapped near a surface

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Dipole-dipole interaction in cavity-QED: perturbative regime
• Spontaneous decay rate and Casimir-Polder potential of an atom near a lithographed surface
• Transfer of angular momentum of guided light to an atom with an electric quadrupole transition near an optical nanofiber
• Torque of guided light on an atom near an optical nanofiber
• Casimir--Polder induced Rydberg macrodimers
• Vacuum-field-induced state mixing
• On the coherent effect of vacuum fluctuations on driven atoms
• Steady-State Entanglement Generation via Casimir-Polder Interactions