Sofia Ribeiro, Stefan Y. Buhmann, Stefan Scheel
Casimir-Polder interactions between an atom and a macroscopic body are typically regarded as due to the exchange of virtual photons. This is strictly true only at zero temperature. At finite temperature, real-photon exchange can provide a significant contribution to the overall dispersion interaction. Here we describe a new two-photon resonant process between an atom and a planar interface. In order to understand recent experimental results with hot atomic vapours in glass microcells, we derive a quantum mechanical description in order to understand in detail the possible coupling between atoms and surface polaritons. We derive a nonlinear effective Hamiltonian to explain how atoms can couple resonantly to the surface polariton modes of the dielectric medium which leads to second-order energy exchanges.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.6621
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