Eur. Phys. J. D 3, 95-104 (1998)
https://doi.org/10.1007/s100530050152

Frequency up-converted radiation from a cavity moving in vacuum

¹ Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (Laboratoire de l'École Normale Supérieure et de l'Université Pierre et Marie Curie associé au CNRS) , Université Pierre et Marie Curie, case 74, 4 place Jussieu, 75252 Paris Cedex 05, France
² Laboratoire de Physique Théorique de l'École Normale Supérieure (Laboratoire du CNRS associé à l'École Normale Supérieure et à l'Université Paris-Sud) , 24 rue Lhomond, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France

Corresponding author: ^a astrid@spectro.jussieu.fr

Received: 10 December 1997
Revised: 27 March 1998
Accepted: 27 March 1998
Published online: 15 July 1998

Abstract

We calculate the photon emission of a high finesse cavity moving in vacuum. The cavity is treated as an open system. The field initially in the vacuum state accumulates a dephasing depending on the mirrors motion when bouncing back and forth inside the cavity. The dephasing is not linearized in our calculation, so that qualitatively new effects like pulse shaping in the time domain and frequency up-conversion in the spectrum are found. Furthermore we predict the existence of a threshold above which the system should show self-sustained oscillations.