Influence of the field-detector coupling strength on the dynamical Casimir effect

Abstract

We consider the problem of photon creation from a vacuum inside an ideal cavity with vibrating walls in the resonance case, taking into account the interaction between the resonant field mode and a detector modeled by a quantum harmonic oscillator. The frequency of wall vibrations is taken to be twice the cavity normal frequency, modified due to the coupling with the detector. The dynamical equations are solved with the aid of the multiple scales method. Analytical expressions are obtained for the photon mean numbers and their variances for the field and detector modes, which are supposed to be initially in the vacuum quantum states. We analyze different regimes of excitation, depending on the ratio of the modulation depth of the time-dependent cavity eigenfrequency to the coupling strength between the cavity mode and detector. We show that statistical properties of the detector quantum state (variances of the photon numbers, photon distribution function, and the degree of quadrature squeezing) can be quite different from that of the field mode. Besides, the mean number of quanta in the detector mode increases with some time delay, compared with the field mode.