It is a well known fact that the presence of material bodies in the vicinity of an atom affects its interaction with the always present quantized electromagnetic field. In this paper, we focus on how the spontaneous-emission rate of a given excited atom is altered when this atom is placed inside a perfectly conducting wedge. We begin by briefly presenting the formalism upon which our calculations are founded, proceeding then to a long but straightforward calculation of the transition rate. We present results for a general atom, but, for the sake of simplicity, we narrow them down to an effective two-level system in our numerical investigations. The oscillatory pattern for the spontaneous-emission rate of the atom as we vary its relative position to the wedge as well as the phenomenon of suppression are shown by a few graphs.

• Received 2 January 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.78.012105