Dynamical gravitational Casimir-Polder interaction

TL;DR

This paper investigates the time-dependent quantum gravitational Casimir-Polder interaction between an object and a boundary, revealing nonlocal effects and potential for both attraction and repulsion, with a transition to static behavior over time.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of dynamical gravitational Casimir-Polder interaction based on linearized quantum gravity, highlighting nonlocality and causality implications.

Findings

The interaction potential is nonzero before radiation arrives.

The interaction can be attractive or repulsive depending on distance and time.

At long times, the potential becomes static and uniformly repulsive.

Abstract

We explore the time-dependent Casimir-Polder-like quantum gravitational interaction between a nonpointlike object and a gravitational Dirichlet boundary, i.e., the dynamical gravitational Casimir-Polder interaction, based on the theory of linearized quantum gravity. We demonstrate that the dynamical interaction potential is nonzero prior to the radiation, which is generated by the gravitational vacuum-fluctuation-induced mass quadrupole of the object, being reflected by the gravitational boundary and back-reacted to the object (i.e., the mirror image of the object lies outside its causal region). This indicates the nonlocality of the fluctuating gravitational field in vacuum and calls for a reevaluation of the inherent causality within the interaction. Moreover, the dynamical gravitational Casimir-Polder interaction can be either attractive or repulsive depending on the distance of the object with respect to the boundary and the time of interaction. When the interaction time is sufficiently long for the system to approach asymptotic equilibrium, the dynamical gravitational Casimir-Polder interaction potential reduces to the static one, which is time-independent and consistently repulsive in both the near and far regimes.