Resonance dipole-dipole interaction between two accelerated atoms in the presence of a reflecting plane boundary

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a reflecting boundary influences the resonance dipole-dipole interaction between two uniformly accelerated atoms, revealing that boundary conditions and acceleration affect the interaction energy through radiation reaction effects.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of boundary and acceleration effects on resonance interactions, highlighting the role of radiation reaction and boundary conditions in quantum field interactions.

Findings

Resonance interaction is unaffected by Unruh thermal fluctuations.

Boundary conditions significantly modify the resonance energy.

Nonthermal acceleration effects influence radiation reaction contributions.

Abstract

We study the resonant dipole-dipole interaction energy between two uniformly accelerated identical atoms, one excited and the other in the ground state, prepared in a correlated {\em Bell-type} state, and interacting with the scalar field or the electromagnetic field nearby a perfectly reflecting plate. We suppose the two atoms moving with the same uniform acceleration, parallel to the plane boundary, and that their separation is constant during the motion. We separate the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction field to the resonance energy shift of the two-atom system, and show that Unruh thermal fluctuations do not affect the resonance interaction, which is exclusively related to the radiation reaction field. However, nonthermal effects of acceleration in the radiation-reaction contribution, beyond the Unruh acceleration-temperature equivalence, affect the resonance interaction energy. By considering specific geometric configurations of the two-atom system relative to the plate, we show that the presence of the mirror significantly modifies the resonance interaction energy between the two accelerated atoms. In particular, we find that new and different features appear with respect to the case of atoms in the free space, related to the presence of the boundary and to the peculiar structure of the quantum electromagnetic field vacuum in the locally inertial frame. Our results suggest the possibility to exploit the resonance interaction between accelerated atoms, as a probe for detecting the elusive effects of atomic acceleration on radiative processes.