Anomalous magnetic moment of an electron near a dispersive surface

Bennett, R. and Eberlein, C. (2013) Anomalous magnetic moment of an electron near a dispersive surface. Physical Review A: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 88(1), 012107. (doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.88.012107)

Abstract

Changes in the magnetic moment of an electron near a dielectric or conducting surface due to boundary-dependent radiative corrections are investigated. The electromagnetic field is quantized by normal mode expansion for a nondispersive dielectric and an undamped plasma, but the electron is described by the Dirac equation without matter-field quantization. Perturbation theory in the Dirac equation leads to a general formula for the magnetic-moment shift in terms of integrals over products of electromagnetic mode functions. In each of the models investigated, contour integration techniques over a complex wave vector can be used to derive a general formula featuring just integrals over transverse electric and transverse magnetic reflection coefficients of the surface. Analysis of the magnetic-moment shift for several classes of materials yields markedly different results from the previously considered simplistic “perfect-reflector” model, due to the inclusion of physically important features of the electromagnetic response of the surface such as evanescent field modes and dispersion in the material. For a general dispersive dielectric surface, the magnetic-moment shift of a nearby electron can exceed the previous prediction of the perfect-reflector model by several orders of magnitude.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Bennett, Dr Robert
• Authors: Bennett, R., and Eberlein, C.
• 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: 10 July 2013