Dynamics of a two-level atom in the presence of a medium-assisted thermal field

Abstract

In this paper, the time evolution of a two-level atom in the presence of a medium-assisted thermal field is explored through which the formula for the decay rate of an excited atom is generalized in two aspects. The obtained formula applies to a thermal electromagnetic field as well as to the presence of an arbitrary arrangement of magnetoelectric media. In order to be general with respect to the material environment, the Green’s function approach is used. It is shown that the non-zero temperature contributes to the decay rate via an additive term that is equal to the zero-temperature result multiplied by two times the photon number at the atomic transition frequency.