Elsevier

Physics Letters B

Volume 645, Issues 5–6, 22 February 2007, Pages 459-465
Physics Letters B

Fulling–Davies–Unruh effect and spontaneous excitation of an accelerated atom interacting with a quantum scalar field

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physletb.2006.12.068Get rights and content
Under a Creative Commons license
open access

Abstract

We investigate, from the point of view of a coaccelerated frame, the spontaneous excitation of a uniformly accelerated two-level atom interacting with a scalar field in a thermal state at a finite temperature T and show that the same spontaneous excitation rate for the uniformly accelerated atom in the Minkowski vacuum obtained in the inertial frame can only be recovered in the coaccelerated frame assuming a thermal bath at the Fulling–Davies–Unruh temperature TFDU=a/2π for what appears to be the Minkowski vacuum to the inertial observer. Our discussion provides another example of a physical process different from those examined before in the literature to better understand the Fulling–Davies–Unruh effect.

PACS

04.62.+v
03.70.+k
42.50.Lc

Cited by (0)