Abstract
We determine, in the van der Waals regime (neglecting retardation and relativistic effects), the frictional powerloss P and thedrag force F = P/u per unit area between two Drude-modelled half-spaces, with surface plasmon frequencyωS and realistically weak dissipation, separated by a gap of widthζ, and constrained to uniform parallel motion with relative speedu. The calculation uses only textbook-level adiabatic and perturbative methods ofnonrelativistic quantum mechanics. The initial temperature is taken to be low,with . At strictly zero temperature, P is proportional to u4/ζ6 when , and to 1/uζ when . But at fixed nonzero τ, as v risesfrom zero, P is at first dominated by a temperature-dependent component proportional tou2T2/ζ4. The assumptions of the model as regards the half-spaces are satisfied by mostquantum-electrodynamics-based approaches, whose results in the nonretarded limit shouldtherefore be the same as ours. We also find that the frequency distribution of thefriction-induced energy increments is not thermal, suggesting that in this respect theHuttner–Barnett theory (which we use to describe dissipative materials) needs furtherrefinement.
Published Version
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