Van der Waals Interactions in a Magneto-Dielectric Medium

Abstract

The van der Waals interaction between two ground-state atoms is calculated for two electrically or magnetically polarizable particles embedded in a dispersive magneto-dielectric medium. Unlike previous calculations which infer the atom-atom interaction from the dilute-medium limit of the macroscopic, many-body van der Waals interaction, the interaction is calculated directly for the system of two atoms in a magneto-dielectric medium. Two approaches are presented, the first based on the quantized electromagnetic field in a dispersive medium without absorption and the second on Green functions that allow for absorption. We show that the correct van der Waals interactions are obtained regardless of whether absorption in the host medium is taken into account.

9 pages, 1 figure

References in corpus (7)

• Three-dimensional quantization of the electromagnetic field in dispersive and absorbing inhomogeneous dielectrics
• Electromagnetic-field quantization and spontaneous decay in left-handed media
• Casimir force between designed materials: what is possible and what not
• Casimir-Polder interaction of atoms with magnetodielectric bodies
• Vacuum force on an atom in a magnetodielectric cavity
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• Macroscopic quantum electrodynamics and duality
• Van der Waals interaction and spontaneous decay of an excited atom in a superlens-type geometry
• Casimir effects in atomic, molecular, and optical physics
• Image method in the calculation of the van der Waals force between an atom and a conducting surface
• Casimir effect with dynamical matter on thin mirrors
• Interatomic van der Waals potential in the presence of a magneto-electric sphere
• Impact of amplifying media on the Casimir force
• Local-field corrected van der Waals potentials in magnetodielectric multilayer systems
• Casimir force on amplifying bodies
• Nonlocal Static and Dynamical Vacuum Field Correlations and Casimir-Polder Interactions
• Dynamical atom-wall Casimir-Polder effect after a sudden change of the atomic position