Collective Effects in Casimir-Polder Forces
Kanupriya Sinha, B. Prasanna Venkatesh, Pierre Meystre
2018
Physical Review Letters
We study cooperative phenomena in the fluctuation-induced forces between a surface and a system of neutral two-level quantum emitters prepared in a coherent collective state, showing that the total Casimir-Polder force on the emitters can be modified via their mutual correlations. Particularly, we find that a collection of emitters prepared in a super- or subradiant state experiences an enhanced or suppressed collective vacuum-induced force, respectively. The collective nature of dispersion
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... es can be understood as resulting from the interference between the different processes contributing to the surface-modified resonant dipole-dipole interaction. Such cooperative fluctuation forces depend singularly on the surface response at the resonance frequency of the emitters, thus being easily maneuverable. Our results demonstrate the potential of collective phenomena as a new tool to selectively tailor vacuum forces.
doi:10.1103/physrevlett.121.183605
fatcat:fasty4xidzbk3hz6236x4jbova