arXiv · quant-ph/0605242
Microscopic Theory of the Photon Recoil of an Atom in a Dielectric
Abstract
An atom recoils when it undergoes spontaneous decay. In this paper we present a microscopic calculation of the recoil of a source atom imbedded in a dielectric medium. We find that the source atom recoils with the canonical photon momentum $n\hbar k_{0,}$ where $n$ is the index of refraction and $\hbar k_{0}$ is the photon momentum calculated at the source atom atomic frequency $ω_{0}$. We also show explicitly how the energy is conserved with the photon inside the medium.
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Hao Fu, P. R. Berman. 2006-10-27. Microscopic Theory of the Photon Recoil of an Atom in a Dielectric. https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/0605242
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