Microscopic Theory of the Photon Recoil of an Atom in a Dielectric

Abstract

An atom recoils when it undergoes spontaneous decay. In this paper we present a microscopic calculation of the recoil of a source atom imbedded in a dielectric medium. We find that the source atom recoils with the canonical photon momentum $n\hslash k_{0,}$ where $n$ is the index of refraction and $\hslash k_0$ is the photon momentum calculated at the source atom atomic frequency $\ddot{I}{‰}_0$. We also show explicitly how the energy is conserved with the photon inside the medium.

15 pages, 2 figures. Several typos and one reference are corrected