Long-time correlations in nonequilibrium atom-surface interactions

The dynamics of atoms immersed in a complex electromagnetic environment is often fundamentally different from the respective isolated dynamics. Not only the fields used to control the atoms, but also thermal and quantum fluctuations in the vicinity of macroscopic bodies lead to changes in the decay rate, induce decoherence, modify the atomic resonances and cause fluctuation-induced forces.

We explore the quantum-optical dispersion interaction between a microscopic particle and a complex electromagnetic environment in nonequilibrium. We argue that long-time correlations, i.e. contributions to the autocorrelation function of quantum operators which scale as an inverse power law in the time delay, can be essential for understanding the dynamics of the particle.