Eberlein, Claudia and Janowicz, Maciej (2003) Interaction of an atom with a small dispersive and absorptive dielectric body. Physical Review A, 67 (6). 063816. ISSN 1050-2947

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Abstract

The paper analyzes the interaction of an atomic system with a quantum damped harmonic oscillator. Such an oscillator is the building block in the recently proposed models of bulk dielectrics and may also serve as a simple model of a small dielectric body. Dispersion and losses are taken into account by assuming the oscillator to be coupled to a zero-temperature reservoir consisting of an infinite system of other harmonic oscillators. The Greens function of the atomic system is calculated perturbatively when coupled to the bath. The self-energy of the atomic electron is obtained by the partial resummation of perturbation diagrams, and thus energy-level shifts of both ground and excited states of the atom due to the presence of the oscillator are determined. Corrections to the decay rates are also obtained and analyzed as functions of the distance of the atom from the oscillator, and of the coupling of the oscillator to the reservoir.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	The interaction of quantum systems with dispersive and absorbing dielectric bodies is usually described by using either the macroscopic Lifshitz approach or the microscopic Huttner-Barnett approach. This paper gives an explicit connection between the two approaches. The work was initiated by me and done in collaboration with a postdoc.
Schools and Departments:	School of Mathematical and Physical Sciences > Physics and Astronomy
Depositing User:	Claudia Eberlein
Date Deposited:	06 Feb 2012 19:23
Last Modified:	02 Jul 2019 21:31
URI:	http://sro.sussex.ac.uk/id/eprint/20356

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