Relationship between Hawking radiation from black holes and spontaneous excitation of atoms

Abstract

Using the formalism that separates the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the rate of change of the mean atomic energy, we show that a two-level atom in interaction with a quantum massless scalar field both in the Hartle-Hawking and Unruh vacuum in a 1+1 dimensional black hole background spontaneously excites as if there is thermal radiation at the Hawking temperature emanating from the black hole. Our calculation, therefore, ties the existence of Hawking radiation to the spontaneous excitation of a two-level atom placed in vacuum in the exterior of a black hole and shows pleasing consistence of two different physical phenomena, the Hawking radiation and the spontaneous excitation of atoms, which are quite prominent in their own right.