Regular Article

Strong enhancement and inhibition of the interatomic van der Waals interaction inside a cylindrical waveguide

¹ Institute of Fundamental and Applied Sciences, Duy Tan University, 10C Tran Nhat Duat St., District 1, Ho Chi Minh City, 700000, Vietnam
² Faculty of Natural Sciences, Duy Tan University, 03 Quang Trung St., Hai Chau District, Danang 550000, Vietnam
³ Department of Theoretical Physics, University of Science, 227 Nguyen Van Cu St., District 5, Ho Chi Minh City 700000, Vietnam

^a e-mail: ndchinh88@gmail.com

Received: 12 January 2020
Received in final form: 16 March 2020
Published online: 1 May 2020

Abstract

We consider the van der Waals interaction between two ground-state atoms, placed inside a cylindrical waveguide. It is shown that the interaction can be enhanced or suppressed by several orders of magnitudes. Even though the effect is most spectacular for an ideal perfectly reflecting wall, it survives when realistic properties of the wall materials are taken into account. Different types of the waveguide wall, including perfectly reflecting wall, walls made of gold and silicon, and Bragg-distributed wall are compared. It is shown in particular that the van der Waals interaction is inhibited by material absorption.