Noble gas, alkali and alkaline atoms interacting with a gold surface

TL;DR

This paper computes detailed atom-surface interaction potentials for various atoms with gold, incorporating retardation effects and realistic gold response, providing accurate data for noble gases, alkali, and alkaline atoms.

Contribution

It presents highly accurate interaction potentials for multiple atomic systems with gold, including dynamic polarizabilities and realistic surface response, improving upon previous models.

Findings

Interaction potentials include retardation effects and realistic gold response.

Comparison shows differences between gold surface and perfect conductor models.

Provides data for noble gases, alkali, and alkaline atoms.

Abstract

The attractive branch of the interaction potentials with the surface of gold have been computed for a large variety of atomic systems: the hydrogen atom, noble gases (He, Ne, Ar, Kr, Xe), alkali atoms (Li, Na, K, Rb, Cs) and alkaline atoms (Be, Mg, Ca, Sr, Ba). The results include highly accurate dynamic polarizabilities for the helium atom calculated using a variational method and explicitly correlated wavefunctions. For other atoms considered we used the data available in the literature. The interaction potentials include both the effects of retardation of the electromagnetic interactions and a realistic representation of the optical response function of gold (beyond the approximation of a perfect conductor). An explicit comparison of our result to the interaction between an atom and a perfect conductor is given.