The Frame-Dragging effect on the excitation rate of atoms

Abstract

The frame-dragging phenomenon in gravitational fields is revisited to explore the geometric effects induced by spacetime curvature. We quantize a massless scalar field in the spacetime of a rotating sphere, incorporating the frame-dragging frequency into the field modes. The excitation rate for an atom undergoing uniform circular motion and interacting with the scalar field is calculated. Our results reveal that the time-dependent excitation rates of atoms following different trajectories exhibit a common envelope, from which the frame-dragging frequency can be effectively extracted. This discovery leads us to propose a novel detection scheme for measuring the frame-dragging frequency caused by rotating celestial bodies, eliminating the need for traditional starlight calibration methods.

arXiv commentWithdrawn by the authors because an error in the derivation leading to Eq. (16) invalidates the principal quantitative conclusions of the manuscript