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Brownian motion of a charged test particle driven by vacuum fluctuations near a dielectric half-space

Hongwei Yu1,2, Xiangyun Fu1,2 and Puxun Wu3

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We study the Brownian motion of a charged test particle driven by quantum electromagnetic fluctuations in the vacuum region near a non-dispersive and non-absorbing dielectric half-space and calculate the mean squared fluctuations in the velocity of the test particle. Our results show that a nonzero susceptibility of the dielectrics has its imprints on the velocity dispersions of the test particles. The most noteworthy feature in sharp contrast to the case of an idealized perfectly conducting interface is that the velocity dispersions in the parallel directions are no longer negative and do not die off in time, suggesting that the potentially problematic negativeness of the dispersions in those directions in the case of perfect conductors is just a result of our idealization and does not occur for real material boundaries.


PACS

12.20.Ds Specific calculations

05.40.Jc Brownian motion

MSC

81V10 Electromagnetic interaction; quantum electrodynamics

60J65 Brownian motion (See also 58J65)

Subjects

Statistical physics and nonlinear systems

Particle physics and field theory

Dates

Issue 33 (22 August 2008)

Received 30 May 2008, in final form 24 June 2008

Published 17 July 2008



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