Dispersive interaction between two atoms in Proca Quantum Electrodynamics

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a massive photon in Proca QED affects the dispersive interaction between two atoms, revealing new length scales and polarization effects, with explicit interaction energy calculations across distance regimes.

Contribution

It provides the first explicit calculation of atomic interaction energy in Proca QED, highlighting the impact of photon mass and polarization on dispersive forces.

Findings

Photon mass introduces a new length scale.

Longitudinal polarization arises due to photon mass.

Non-retarded approximation improves with larger photon mass.

Abstract

We analyze the influence of a massive photon in the dispersive interaction between two atoms in their fundamental states. We work in the context of Proca Quantum Electrodynamics. The photon mass not only introduces a new length scale but also gives rise to a longitudinal polarization for the electromagnetic field. We obtain explicitly the interaction energy between the atoms for any distance regime and consider several particular cases. We show that, for a given interatomic distance, the greater the photon mass the better it is the non-retarded approximation.