Reply to Comment on "Revisiting the divergent multipole expansion of atom-surface interactions: Hydrogen and positronium, alpha-quartz, and physisorption" (arXiv:2501.14803)

TL;DR

This paper defends previous findings on atom-surface interactions against criticism, clarifying the validity of their extended Lifshitz theory application to physisorption and addressing the concept of atom-surface distance.

Contribution

It provides a rebuttal to criticism by clarifying the validity of the extended Lifshitz theory and the concept of atom-surface distance in physisorption.

Findings

Criticism fails to consider recent upper limit results.

Application of Lifshitz theory to physisorption is valid with a refined reference-plane.

The concept of atom-surface distance is effectively extended using a reference-plane.

Abstract

We present a Reply to the Comment by G. L. Klimchitskaya, arXiv:2501.14803 [physics.atom-ph]. It is shown that the criticism formulated in the Comment fails to appreciate recently obtained results for the upper limit of the short-range expansion of atom-surface interactions, and that the application of our results to physisorption is based on a valid extension of Lifshitz theory to the physisorption range, which can be accomplished by refining the concept of the atom-surface distance with the help of a reference-plane that takes the response function of the solid into account. Some details on the calculation of the reference-plane are recalled from the literature.