1202.1982 (Stefan Yoshi Buhmann et al.)

Casimir-Polder interaction of fullerene molecules with surfaces    [PDF]

Stefan Yoshi Buhmann, Stefan Scheel, Simen Å. Ellingsen, Klaus Hornberger, Andreas Jacob

We calculate the thermal Casimir--Polder potential of C60 and C70 fullerene
molecules near gold and silicon nitride surfaces, motivated by their relevance
for molecular matter wave interference experiments. We obtain the coefficients
governing the asymptotic power laws of the interaction in the thermal, retarded
and nonretarded distance regimes and evaluate the full potential numerically.
The interaction is found to be dominated by electronic transitions, and hence
independent of the internal temperature of the molecules. The contributions
from phonon transitions, which are affected by the molecular temperature, give
rise to only a small correction. Moreover, we find that the sizeable molecular
line widths of thermal fullerenes may modify the nonretarded interaction,
depending on the model used. Detailed measurements of the nonretarded potential
of fullerene thus allow one to distinguish between different theories of
incorporating damping.

View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1202.1982