Casimir-Polder forces in the presence of the cosmic photon heat bath

TL;DR

This paper investigates how a finite-temperature photon background influences Casimir-Polder forces, revealing that these forces are unaffected at short distances but significantly amplified at larger scales.

Contribution

It provides a theoretical analysis of the temperature-dependent behavior of Casimir-Polder forces in a photon heat bath, highlighting the distance-dependent effects.

Findings

Casimir-Polder forces remain unchanged at distances much less than the inverse temperature.

For distances much greater than the inverse temperature, forces are strongly enhanced.

The study clarifies the impact of thermal photon backgrounds on quantum electromagnetic interactions.

Abstract

We study the effect of a photon background at finite temperature $T$ on the Van der Waals interactions among neutral bodies. It turns out that the long-range Casimir-Polder force is unaffected for distances much less than $T^{-1}$ and strongly enhanced for distances much above $T^{-1}$.