TY  - JOUR
A1  - Intravaia, F.
A1  - Behunin, R. O.
A1  - Henkel, Carsten
A1  - Busch, K.
A1  - Dalvit, D. A. R.
T1  - Failure of Local Thermal Equilibrium in Quantum Friction
JF  - Physical review letters
N2  - Recent progress in manipulating atomic and condensed matter systems has instigated a surge of interest in nonequilibrium physics, including many-body dynamics of trapped ultracold atoms and ions, near-field radiative heat transfer, and quantum friction. Under most circumstances the complexity of such nonequilibrium systems requires a number of approximations to make theoretical descriptions tractable. In particular, it is often assumed that spatially separated components of a system thermalize with their immediate surroundings, although the global state of the system is out of equilibrium. This powerful assumption reduces the complexity of nonequilibrium systems to the local application of well-founded equilibrium concepts. While this technique appears to be consistent for the description of some phenomena, we show that it fails for quantum friction by underestimating by approximately 80% the magnitude of the drag force. Our results show that the correlations among the components of driven, but steady-state, quantum systems invalidate the assumption of local thermal equilibrium, calling for a critical reexamination of this approach for describing the physics of nonequilibrium systems.
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.117.100402
SN  - 0031-9007
SN  - 1079-7114
VL  - 117
SP  - 989
EP  - 1010
PB  - American Physical Society
CY  - College Park
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Intravaia, F.
A1  - Behunin, R. O.
A1  - Henkel, Carsten
A1  - Busch, K.
A1  - Dalvit, D. A. R.
T1  - Non-Markovianity in atom-surface dispersion forces
JF  - Physical review : A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics
N2  - We discuss the failure of the Markov approximation in the description of atom-surface fluctuation-induced interactions, both in equilibrium (Casimir-Polder forces) and out of equilibrium (quantum friction). Using general theoretical arguments, we show that the Markov approximation can lead to erroneous predictions of such phenomena with regard to both strength and functional dependencies on system parameters. In particular, we show that the long-time power-law tails of two-time dipole correlations and their corresponding low-frequency behavior, neglected in the Markovian limit, affect the prediction of the force. Our findings highlight the importance of non-Markovian effects in dispersion interactions.
Y1  - 2016
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.042114
SN  - 2469-9926
SN  - 2469-9934
VL  - 94
PB  - American Physical Society
CY  - College Park
ER  -