Geometric phase of an accelerated two-level atom in the presence of a perfectly reflecting plane boundary

摘要

We study the geometric phase of a uniformly accelerated two level atom coupled with vacuum fluctuations of electromagnetic fields in the presence of a perfectly reflecting plane. We find that the geometric phase difference between the accelerated and inertial atoms which can be observed by atom interferometry crucially depends on the polarizability of the atom and the distance to the boundary and it can be dramatically manipulated with anisotropically polarizable atoms. In particular, extremely close to the boundary, the phase difference can be increased by two times as compared to the case without any boundary. So, the detectability of the effects associated with acceleration using an atom interferometer can be significantly increased by the presence of a boundary using atoms with anisotropic polarizability. (C) 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.