The Hamiltonian for an atom interacting with gravitational waves
Fuente:
arXiv
Salvato in:
| Autori principali: | , |
|---|---|
| Natura: | Preprint |
| Pubblicazione: |
2026
|
| Soggetti: | |
| Accesso online: | |
| Tags: |
Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
|
| _version_ | 1866912848474537984 |
|---|---|
| author | van Manen, Linda M. Grossardt, André |
| author_facet | van Manen, Linda M. Grossardt, André |
| contents | Building on the relativistic Hamiltonian of Sonnleitner and Barnett arXiv:1806.00234 and its post-Newtonian extensions by Schwartz and Giuilini arXiv:1908.06929, we investigate composite atomic systems in dynamical gravitational backgrounds. Using a local inertial frame and a perturbed Minkowski metric, we derive curvature-dependent corrections to both center-of-mass and internal Hamiltonians for atoms interacting with weak gravitational waves. The resulting Hamiltonian contains distinct curvature couplings modifying the internal potential and affecting the center-of-mass dynamics. These contributions imply that internal-energy variations do not always reduce to mass renormalization and can induce genuine forces due to changes in momentum. The initial research was motivated by anomalous friction-like forces emerging in quantum optics, and clarified that the anomalous forces are mere relativistic corrections from mass-energy equivalence. Our results suggest that, with increasingly sensitive detectors, additional forces from gravitational wave interactions may become visible in future experiments. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_17891 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The Hamiltonian for an atom interacting with gravitational waves van Manen, Linda M. Grossardt, André General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Quantum Physics Building on the relativistic Hamiltonian of Sonnleitner and Barnett arXiv:1806.00234 and its post-Newtonian extensions by Schwartz and Giuilini arXiv:1908.06929, we investigate composite atomic systems in dynamical gravitational backgrounds. Using a local inertial frame and a perturbed Minkowski metric, we derive curvature-dependent corrections to both center-of-mass and internal Hamiltonians for atoms interacting with weak gravitational waves. The resulting Hamiltonian contains distinct curvature couplings modifying the internal potential and affecting the center-of-mass dynamics. These contributions imply that internal-energy variations do not always reduce to mass renormalization and can induce genuine forces due to changes in momentum. The initial research was motivated by anomalous friction-like forces emerging in quantum optics, and clarified that the anomalous forces are mere relativistic corrections from mass-energy equivalence. Our results suggest that, with increasingly sensitive detectors, additional forces from gravitational wave interactions may become visible in future experiments. |
| title | The Hamiltonian for an atom interacting with gravitational waves |
| topic | General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology Quantum Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.17891 |