title: Mapping out atom-wall interaction with atomic clocks.
abstract: We explore the feasibility of probing atom-wall interaction with atomic clocks based on atoms trapped in engineered optical lattices. Optical lattice is normal to the wall. By monitoring the wall-induced clock shift at individual wells of the lattice, one would measure the dependence of the atom-wall interaction on the atom-wall separation. We find that the induced clock shifts are large and observable at already experimentally demonstrated levels of accuracy. We show that this scheme may uniquely probe the long-range atom-wall interaction in all three qualitatively distinct regimes of the interaction: van der Waals (image-charge interaction), Casimir-Polder (QED vacuum fluctuations), and Lifshitz (thermal-bath fluctuations) regimes.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada 89557, USA.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Derevianko
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Obreshkov
authors.forename: V A
authors.initials: VA
authors.lastname: Dzuba