Abstract

Recently, we have experimentally established that the fundamental Casimir-Polder atom-surface interaction can be strongly modified by the temperature effects [1]. Our measurements are performed in the near-field regime so that the atom-surface C₃ van der Waals interaction, which corresponds for a given atomic level to a shift of the energy spanning as - C₃. z⁻³, with z the atom-surface distance, is modified by the thermal excitation of the surface modes, with C₃ becoming C₃(T) and T being the equilibrium temperature. Roughly, the atom is a near-field probe of the blackbody emission. The experiments were performed on Cs(7D_3/2), through a selective reflection spectroscopy technique on a vapour at the interface of a hot superpolished sapphire window. The measurements rely on an elaborate fitting of the experimental lineshapes to a catalogue of universal lineshapes.

© 2015 IEEE