Impact of Casimir-Polder interaction on Poisson-spot diffraction at a dielectric sphere

Hemmerich, J. L., Bennett, R. , Reisinger, T., Nimmrichter, S., Fiedler, J., Hahn, H., Gleiter, H. and Buhmann, S. Y. (2016) Impact of Casimir-Polder interaction on Poisson-spot diffraction at a dielectric sphere. Physical Review A: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 94(2), 023621. (doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.94.023621)

Abstract

Diffraction of matter waves is an important demonstration of the fact that objects in nature possess a mixture of particlelike and wavelike properties. Unlike in the case of light diffraction, matter waves are subject to a vacuum-mediated interaction with diffraction obstacles. Here we present a detailed account of this effect through the calculation of the attractive Casimir-Polder potential between a dielectric sphere and an atomic beam. Furthermore, we use our calculated potential to make predictions about the diffraction patterns to be observed in an ongoing experiment where a beam of indium atoms is diffracted around a silicon-dioxide sphere. The result is an amplification of the on-axis bright feature, which is the matter-wave analog of the well-known “Poisson spot” from optics. Our treatment confirms that the diffraction patterns resulting from our complete account of the sphere Casimir-Polder potential are indistinguishable from those found via a large-sphere nonretarded approximation in the discussed experiments, establishing the latter as an adequate model.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Bennett, Dr Robert
• Authors: Hemmerich, J. L., Bennett, R., Reisinger, T., Nimmrichter, S., Fiedler, J., Hahn, H., Gleiter, H., and Buhmann, S. Y.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: Physical Review A: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• ISSN: 1050-2947
• ISSN (Online): 1094-1622
• Published Online: 17 August 2016