Quantum radiation pressure on a moving mirror at finite temperature

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the radiation pressure force on a moving mirror at finite temperature, revealing dissipative and dispersive components, with implications for quantum dissipation and decoherence.

Contribution

It provides a detailed calculation of radiation pressure on a moving mirror at finite temperature, including high and low temperature regimes, and explores quantum dissipation effects.

Findings

High temperature force includes a velocity-proportional dissipative component.

Scalar field force has a dispersive component related to mass correction.

Electromagnetic field contributions cancel in the mass correction.

Abstract

We compute the radiation pressure force on a moving mirror, in the nonrelativistic approximation, assuming the field to be at temperature $T.$ At high temperature, the force has a dissipative component proportional to the mirror velocity, which results from Doppler shift of the reflected thermal photons. In the case of a scalar field, the force has also a dispersive component associated to a mass correction. In the electromagnetic case, the separate contributions to the mass correction from the two polarizations cancel. We also derive explicit results in the low temperature regime, and present numerical results for the general case. As an application, we compute the dissipation and decoherence rates for a mirror in a harmonic potential well.