Svidzinsky Anatoly, Azizi Arash, Ben-Benjamin Jonathan S, Scully Marlan O, Unruh William
Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843, USA.
Baylor University, Waco, Texas 76798, USA.
Phys Rev Lett. 2021 Feb 12;126(6):063603. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.063603.
A ground-state atom uniformly accelerated through the Minkowski vacuum can become excited by emitting an Unruh-Minkowski photon. We show that from the perspective of an accelerated atom, the sign of the frequency of the Unruh-Minkowski photons can be positive or negative depending on the acceleration direction. The accelerated atom becomes excited by emitting an Unruh-Minkowski photon which has negative frequency in the atom's frame, and decays by emitting a positive-frequency photon. This leads to interesting effects. For example, the photon emitted by accelerated ground-state atom cannot be absorbed by another ground-state atom accelerating in the same direction, but it can be absorbed by an excited atom or a ground-state atom accelerated in the opposite direction. We also show that similar effects take place for Cherenkov radiation. Namely, a Cherenkov photon emitted by an atom cannot be absorbed by another ground-state atom moving with the same velocity, but can be absorbed by an excited atom or a ground-state atom moving in the opposite direction.
一个在闵可夫斯基真空中均匀加速的基态原子可以通过发射一个昂鲁 - 闵可夫斯基光子而被激发。我们表明，从加速原子的角度来看，昂鲁 - 闵可夫斯基光子频率的符号可以是正的或负的，这取决于加速方向。加速原子通过发射一个在原子参考系中具有负频率的昂鲁 - 闵可夫斯基光子而被激发，并通过发射一个正频率光子而衰变。这导致了有趣的效应。例如，加速基态原子发射的光子不能被另一个沿相同方向加速的基态原子吸收，但它可以被一个激发态原子或沿相反方向加速的基态原子吸收。我们还表明，切伦科夫辐射也会出现类似的效应。也就是说，原子发射的切伦科夫光子不能被另一个以相同速度运动的基态原子吸收，但可以被一个激发态原子或沿相反方向运动的基态原子吸收。
