Nonequilibrium Forces Between Neutral Atoms Mediated by a Quantum Field

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive quantum field theoretical framework to analyze forces between neutral atoms, revealing known interactions and discovering new nonequilibrium and entanglement-induced forces.

Contribution

It introduces a unified, dynamical approach to calculate atom-atom forces including nonequilibrium and entanglement effects, extending beyond traditional static models.

Findings

Recovery of London, van der Waals, and Casimir-Polder forces in equilibrium.

Identification of a new nonequilibrium force between atoms.

Discovery of an entanglement force from internal atomic correlations.

Abstract

We study all known and as yet unknown forces between two neutral atoms, modeled as three dimensional harmonic oscillators, arising from mutual influences mediated by an electromagnetic field but not from their direct interactions. We allow as dynamical variables the center of mass motion of the atom, its internal degrees of freedom and the quantum field treated relativistically. We adopt the method of nonequilibrium quantum field theory which can provide a first principle, systematic and unified description including the intrinsic field fluctuations and induced dipole fluctuations. The inclusion of self-consistent back-actions makes possible a fully dynamical description of these forces valid for general atom motion. In thermal equilibrium we recover the known forces -- London, van der Waals and Casimir-Polder forces -- between neutral atoms in the long-time limit but also discover the existence of two new types of interatomic forces. The first, a `nonequilibrium force', arises when the field and atoms are not in thermal equilibrium, and the second, which we call an `entanglement force', originates from the correlations of the internal degrees of freedom of entangled atoms.