Radiative energy shifts of accelerated atoms

TL;DR

This paper investigates how uniform acceleration affects the radiative energy shifts of atoms, distinguishing between vacuum fluctuation and radiation reaction contributions, and compares accelerated and stationary atom energy shifts.

Contribution

It introduces a Heisenberg picture method to separate vacuum fluctuation and radiation reaction effects on the Lamb shift of accelerated atoms.

Findings

Energy shifts differ for accelerated and stationary atoms.

Vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction contributions are explicitly separated.

Uniform acceleration modifies the Lamb shift compared to an atom at rest.

Abstract

We consider the influence of acceleration on the radiative energy shifts of atoms in Minkowski space. We study a two-level atom coupled to a scalar quantum field. Using a Heisenberg picture approach, we are able to separate the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the Lamb shift of the two-level atom. The resulting energy shifts for the special case of a uniformly accelerated atom are then compared with those of an atom at rest.