Radiation Reaction of a Jiggling Dipole in a Quantum Electromagnetic Field

Abstract

We show how to derive a consistent quantum theory of radiation reaction of a non-relativistic point-dipole quantum oscillator by including the dynamical fluctuations of the position of the dipole. The proposed non-linear theory displays neither runaway solutions nor acausal behaviour without requiring additional assumptions. Furthermore, we show that quantum (zero-point) fluctuations of the electromagnetic field are necessary to fulfil the second law of thermodynamics.