Enhancement of blackbody friction due to the finite lifetime of atomic levels

• Verfasst von: Łach, Grzegorz [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: DeKieviet, Maarten [VerfasserIn]
• Verfasst von: Jentschura, Ulrich D. [VerfasserIn]
• Titel: Enhancement of blackbody friction due to the finite lifetime of atomic levels
• Verf.angabe: G. Łach, M. DeKieviet and U.D. Jentschura
• E-Jahr: 2012
• Jahr: 24 January 2012
• Umfang: 4 S.
• Fussnoten: Gesehen am 30.10.2018
• Titel Quelle: Enthalten in: Physical review letters
• Ort Quelle: College Park, Md. : APS, 1958
• Jahr Quelle: 2012
• Band/Heft Quelle: 108(2012), 4, Artikel-ID 043005
• ISSN Quelle: 1079-7114
• DOI: doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.108.043005
• Datenträger: Online-Ressource
• Sprache: eng
• K10plus-PPN: 1582429723

Abstract

The thermal friction force acting on an atom moving relative to a thermal photon bath is known to be proportional to an integral over the imaginary part of the frequency-dependent atomic (dipole) polarizability. Using a numerical approach, we find that blackbody friction on atoms either in dilute environments or in hot ovens is larger than previously thought by orders of magnitude. This enhancement is due to far off-resonant driving of transitions by low-frequency thermal radiation. At typical temperatures, the blackbody radiation maximum lies far below the atomic transition wavelengths. Surprisingly, due to the finite lifetime of atomic levels, which gives rise to Lorentzian line profiles, far off-resonant excitation leads to the dominant contribution for blackbody friction.