Dynamical Casimir-Polder force on a partially dressed atom near a conducting wall

TL;DR

This paper investigates the time-dependent Casimir-Polder force on a partially dressed atom near a conducting wall, revealing dynamical effects and proposing experimental methods to observe them.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical framework for the dynamical evolution of the Casimir-Polder force starting from a partially dressed atomic state.

Findings

Time-dependent Casimir-Polder force exhibits unique dynamical behavior.

A feasible experimental scheme for preparing the initial state is proposed.

The observability of the dynamical force effects is discussed.

Abstract

We study the time evolution of the Casimir-Polder force acting on a neutral atom in front of a perfectly conducting plate, when the system starts its unitary evolution from a partially dressed state. We solve the Heisenberg equations for both atomic and field quantum operators, exploiting a series expansion with respect to the electric charge and an iterative technique. After discussing the behaviour of the time-dependent force on an initially partially-dressed atom, we analyze a possible experimental scheme to prepare the partially dressed state and the observability of this new dynamical effect.