https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2017-80273-8
Regular Article
The Röntgen interaction and forces on dipoles in time-modulated optical fields
1
School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow,
Glasgow
G12 8QQ, UK
2
Institut für Theoretische Physik, Universität Innsbruck,
Technikerstraße 21A,
6020
Innsbruck, Austria
a e-mail: matthias.sonnleitner@uibk.ac.at
Received:
21
April
2017
Received in final form:
1
September
2017
Published online: 19
December
2017
The Röntgen term is an often neglected contribution to the interaction between an atom and an electromagnetic field in the electric dipole approximation. In this work we discuss how this interaction term leads to a difference between the kinetic and canonical momentum of an atom which, in turn, leads to surprising radiation forces acting on the atom. We use a number of examples to explore the main features of this interaction, namely forces acting against the expected dipole force or accelerations perpendicular to the beam propagation axis.
Key words: Atomic Physics
© The Author(s) 2017. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
