Negative spontaneous emission by a moving two-level atom

Abstract

In this paper we investigate how the dynamics of a two-level atom is affected by its interaction with the quantized near field of a plasmonic slab in relative motion. We demonstrate that for small separation distances and a relative velocity greater than a certain threshold, this interaction can lead to a population inversion, such that the probability of the excited state exceeds the probability of the ground state, corresponding to a negative spontaneous emission rate. It is shown that the developed theory is intimately related to a classical problem. The problem of quantum friction is analyzed and the differences with respect to the corresponding classical effect are highlighted.

29 pages, 3 figures

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Cited by in corpus (2)

• Topological Angular Momentum and Radiative Heat Transport in Closed Orbits
• Spontaneous Rotational Symmetry Breaking in a Kramers Two-Level System