Influence of thermal bath on Pancharatnam-Berry phase in an accelerated frame

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a thermal bath influences the Pancharatnam-Berry phase of an accelerated atom, revealing that high temperatures enhance the phase but make experimental detection of the Unruh effect challenging.

Contribution

It demonstrates that the thermal nature of quantum fields affects the geometric phase in accelerated systems, highlighting the exchange symmetry between Unruh and real thermal baths.

Findings

Thermal baths modify the Pancharatnam-Berry phase in accelerated atoms.

High temperatures can enhance the phase compared to zero temperature.

Detecting the Unruh effect via this phase requires unattainably high temperatures.

Abstract

A uniformly accelerated atom captures Pancharatnam-Berry phase in its quantum state and the phase factor depends on the vacuum fluctuation of the background quantum fields. We observe that the thermal nature of the fields further affects the induced phase. Interestingly the induced phase captures the exchange symmetry between the Unruh and real thermal baths. This observation further supports the claim that the Unruh thermal bath mimics a real thermal bath. Moreover for certain values of system parameters and at high temperature, the phase is enhanced compared to zero temperature situation. However the required temperature to observe the phase experimentally is so high that the detection of Unruh effect through this is not possible within the current technology.