Detecting modified vacuum fluctuations due to presence of a boundary by means of the geometric phase

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a boundary affects vacuum fluctuations by analyzing the geometric phase of an atom near the boundary, proposing a method to detect vacuum fluctuations experimentally.

Contribution

It introduces a novel approach to detect vacuum fluctuations through the position-dependent geometric phase of an atom near a boundary.

Findings

Geometric phase depends on atom's position relative to the boundary.

Boundary modifies electromagnetic vacuum fluctuations.

Potential experimental method for observing vacuum fluctuations.

Abstract

We study the geometric phase acquired by an inertial atom whose trajectories are parallel to a reflecting boundary due its coupling to vacuum fluctuations of electromagnetic fields, by treating the atom as an open quantum system in a bath of the fluctuating vacuum fields, and show that the phase is position dependent as a result of the presence of the boundary which modifies the field quantum fluctuations. Our result therefore suggests a possible way of detecting vacuum fluctuations in experiments involving geometric phase.