Using atomic interference to probe atom-surface interaction

Abstract

We show that atomic interference in the reflection from two suitably polarized evanescent waves is sensitive to retardation effects in the atom-surface interaction for specific experimental parameters. We study the limit of short and long atomic de Broglie wavelength. The former case is analyzed in the semiclassical approximation (Landau-Zener model). The latter represents a quantum regime and is analyzed by solving numerically the associated coupled Schroedinger equations. We consider a specific experimental scheme and show the results for rubidium (short wavelength) and the much lighter meta-stable helium atom (long wavelength). The merits of each case are then discussed.

11 pages, including 6 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. A, RevTeX source

References in corpus (2)

• Long-range interactions of metastable helium atoms
• Theory of atomic diffraction from evanescent waves

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• Integrated Optical Dipole Trap for Cold Neutral Atoms with an Optical Waveguide Coupler
• Long-range atom-surface interactions for cold atoms
• Atomic diffraction from nanostructured optical potentials