Giant vacuum forces via transmission lines
Edited by Marlan O. Scully, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX; and Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, and approved June 6, 2014 (received for review January 22, 2014)
Significance
Quantum theory states that at zero temperature and in the absence of any radiation, there still exist fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, the so-called vacuum fluctuations. These fluctuations give rise to the well-known van der Waals (vdW) or Casimir forces between neutral objects, which underlie diverse phenomena in physics and chemistry. We find that these forces can be drastically enhanced for neutral particles near a transmission line (TL), the standard workhorse of electronic signal transmission. The vacuum fluctuations are then confined to propagate along the TL axis, resulting in a giant long-range vdW force. This dramatic effect would have profound implications on vdW and Casimir phenomena and may find novel applications in emerging quantum technologies.
Abstract
Quantum electromagnetic fluctuations induce forces between neutral particles, known as the van der Waals and Casimir interactions. These fundamental forces, mediated by virtual photons from the vacuum, play an important role in basic physics and chemistry and in emerging technologies involving, e.g., microelectromechanical systems or quantum information processing. Here we show that these interactions can be enhanced by many orders of magnitude upon changing the character of the mediating vacuum modes. By considering two polarizable particles in the vicinity of any standard electric transmission line, along which photons can propagate in one dimension, we find a much stronger and longer-range interaction than in free space. This enhancement may have profound implications on many-particle and bulk systems and impact the quantum technologies mentioned above. The predicted giant vacuum force is estimated to be measurable in a coplanar waveguide line.
Acknowledgments
We appreciate fruitful discussions with Yoseph Imry and Grzegorz Łach. The support of Israeli Science Foundation, the Binational Science Foundation, the Wolfgang Pauli Institute, and the Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Project P25329-N27) is acknowledged.
Supporting Information
Supporting Information (PDF)
Supporting Information
- Download
- 134.98 KB
References
1
F London, The general theory of molecular foeces. Trans Faraday Soc 33, 8–26 (1937).
2
HBG Casimir, D Polder, The influence of retardation on the London-van der Waals forces. Phys Rev 73, 360–372 (1948).
3
HBG Casimir, On the attraction between two perfectly conducting plates. Proc K Ned Akad Wet 51, 793–795 (1948).
4
PW Milonni The Quantum Vacuum: An Introduction to Quantum Electrodynamics (Academic, London, 1993).
5
AO Sushkov, WJ Kim, DAR Dalvit, SK Lamoreaux, Observation of the thermal Casimir force. Nat Phys 7, 230–233 (2011).
6
DE Krause, RS Decca, D López, E Fischbach, Experimental investigation of the Casimir force beyond the proximity-force approximation. Phys Rev Lett 98, 050403 (2007).
7
CC Chang, AA Banishev, GL Klimchitskaya, VM Mostepanenko, U Mohideen, Reduction of the Casimir force from indium tin oxide film by UV treatment. Phys Rev Lett 107, 090403 (2011).
8
JN Munday, F Capasso, VA Parsegian, Measured long-range repulsive Casimir-Lifshitz forces. Nature 457, 170–173 (2009).
9
DAR Dalvit, FC Lombardo, FD Mazzitelli, R Onofrio, Exact Casimir interaction between eccentric cylinders. Phys Rev A 74, 020101 (2006).
10
T Emig, RL Jaffe, M Kardar, A Scardicchio, Casimir interaction between a plate and a cylinder. Phys Rev Lett 96, 080403 (2006).
11
RB Rodrigues, PA Neto, A Lambrecht, S Reynaud, Lateral Casimir force beyond the proximity-force approximation. Phys Rev Lett 96, 100402 (2006).
12
M Levin, AP McCauley, AW Rodriguez, MTH Reid, SG Johnson, Casimir repulsion between metallic objects in vacuum. Phys Rev Lett 105, 090403 (2010).
13
E Álvarez, FD Mazzitelli, Long range Casimir force induced by transverse electromagnetic modes. Phys Rev D 79, 045019 (2009).
14
KA Milton, P Parashar, N Pourtolami, I Brevik, Casimir-Polder repulsion: Polarizable atoms, cylinders, spheres, and ellipsoids. Phys Rev D 85, 025008 (2012).
15
AW Rodriguez, F Capasso, SG Johnson, The Casimir effect in microstructured geometries. Nat Photonics 5, 211–221 (2011).
16
HB Chan, VA Aksyuk, RN Kleiman, DJ Bishop, F Capasso, Quantum mechanical actuation of microelectromechanical systems by the Casimir force. Science 291, 1941–1944 (2001).
17
M Saffman, TG Walker, K Molmer, Quantum information with Rydberg atoms. Rev Mod Phys 82, 2313–2363 (2010).
18
T Peyronel, et al., Quantum nonlinear optics with single photons enabled by strongly interacting atoms. Nature 488, 57–60 (2012).
19
CM Wilson, et al., Observation of the dynamical Casimir effect in a superconducting circuit. Nature 479, 376–379 (2011).
20
P Lähteenmäki, GS Paraoanu, J Hassel, J Hakonen, Dynamical Casimir effect in a Josephson metamaterial. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110, 4234–4238 (2013).
21
AG Kofman, G Kurizki, B Sherman, Spontaneous and induced atomic decay in photonic band structures. J Mod Opt 41, 353–384 (1994).
22
M Fujita, S Takahashi, Y Tanaka, T Asano, S Noda, Simultaneous inhibition and redistribution of spontaneous light emission in photonic crystals. Science 308, 1296–1298 (2005).
23
E Shahmoon, G Kurizki, Nonradiative interaction and entanglement between distant atoms. Phys Rev A 87, 033831 (2013).
24
DM Pozar Microwave Engineering (Wiley, New York, 2005).
25
E Shahmoon, G Kurizki, Dispersion forces inside metallic waveguides. Phys Rev A 87, 062105 (2013).
26
DP Craig, T Thirunamachandran Molecular Quantum Electrodynamics (Academic, London, 1984).
27
J Koch, et al., Charge-insensitive qubit design derived from the Cooper pair box. Phys Rev A 76, 042319 (2007).
28
M Baur, et al., Benchmarking a quantum teleportation protocol in superconducting circuits using tomography and an entanglement witness. Phys Rev Lett 108, 040502 (2012).
29
VM Stojanovi’c, A Fedorov, A Wallraff, C Bruder, Quantum-control approach to realizing a Toffoli gate in circuit QED. Phys Rev B 85, 054504 (2012).
30
F Intravaia, C Henkel, M Antezza, Fluctuation-induced forces between atoms and surfaces: The Casimir-Polder interaction. Casimir Physics, Lecture Notes in Physics (Springer, Berlin), Vol 834, pp 345–391. (2011).
31
D Petrosyan, et al., Reversible state transfer between superconducting qubits and atomic ensembles. Phys Rev A 79, 040304 (2009).
32
M Born, E Wolf Principles of Optics (Pergamon, London, 1970).
33
EA Power, T Thirunamachandran, Dispersion forces between molecules with one or both molecules excited. Phys Rev A 51, 3660–3666 (1995).
34
Y Sherkunov, van der Waals interaction of excited media. Phys Rev A 72, 052703 (2005).
35
SA Ellingsen, SY Buhmann, S Scheel, Casimir-Polder energy-level shifts of an out-of-equilibrium particle near a microsphere. Phys Rev A 85, 022503 (2012).
36
MT Jaekel, S Reynaud, Casimir force between partially transmitting mirrors. J Phys I 1, 1395–1409 (1991).
37
K Okamoto Fundamentals of Optical Waveguides (Elsevier, London, 2006).
Information & Authors
Information
Published in
Classifications
Submission history
Published online: July 7, 2014
Published in issue: July 22, 2014
Keywords
Acknowledgments
We appreciate fruitful discussions with Yoseph Imry and Grzegorz Łach. The support of Israeli Science Foundation, the Binational Science Foundation, the Wolfgang Pauli Institute, and the Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Project P25329-N27) is acknowledged.
Notes
*This Direct Submission article had a prearranged editor.
Authors
Competing Interests
The authors declare no conflict of interest.
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Altmetrics
Citations
Cite this article
Giant vacuum forces via transmission lines, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.
111 (29) 10485-10490,
https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1401346111
(2014).
Copied!
Copying failed.
Export the article citation data by selecting a format from the list below and clicking Export.
Cited by
Loading...
View Options
View options
PDF format
Download this article as a PDF file
DOWNLOAD PDFLogin options
Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.
Personal login Institutional LoginRecommend to a librarian
Recommend PNAS to a LibrarianPurchase options
Purchase this article to access the full text.