Casimir-Polder forces from density matrix formalism

Abstract

We use the density matrix formalism in order to calculate the energy level shifts, in second order on interaction, of an atom in the presence of a perfectly conducting wall in the dipole approximation. The thermal corrections are also examined when $\hbar ω_0/k_B T = k_0 λ_T \gg 1$, where ${$ω_0=k_0 c$}$ is the dominant transition frequency of the atom and $λ_T$ is the thermal length. When the distance $z$ between the atom and the wall is larger than $λ_T$ we find the well known result obtained from Lifshitz's formula, whose leading term is proportional to temperature and is independent of $c$, $\hbar$ and $k_0$. In the short distance limit, when $z\llλ_T$, only very small corrections to the leading vacuum term occur. We also show, for all distance regimes, that the main thermal corrections are independent of $k_0$ (dispersion is not important) and dependent of $c$, which means that there is not a non-retarded regime for the thermal contributions.