Relativity and quantum optics: accelerated atoms in optical cavities

Understand

We analyze the physics of accelerated particle detectors (such as atoms) crossing optical cavities.

• In particular we focus on the detector response as well as on the energy signature that the detectors imprint in the cavities.
• In doing so, we examine to what extent the usual approximations made in quantum optics in cavities (such as the single-mode approximation, or the dimensional reduction of 3+1D cavities to simplified 1+1D setups) are acceptable when the atoms move in relativistic trajectories.
• We also study the dependence of these approximations on the state of the atoms and the relativistic nature of the trajectory.