The Casimir-Polder force is an attractive force between a polarizable atom and a conducting or dielectric boundary. Its original computation was in terms of the Lamb shift of the atomic ground state in an electromagnetic field modified by boundary conditions along the wall and assuming a stationary atom. We calculate the corrections to this force due to a moving atom, demanding maximal preservation of entanglement generated by the moving atom-conducting wall system. We do this by using nonperturbative path integral techniques which allow for coherent backaction and thus can treat non-Markovian processes. We recompute the atom-wall force for a conducting boundary by allowing the bare atom-EMF ground state to evolve (or self-dress) into the interacting ground state. We find a clear distinction between the cases of stationary and adiabatic motions. Our result for the retardation correction for adiabatic motion is up to twice as much as that computed for stationary atoms. We give physical interpretations of both the stationary and adiabatic atom-wall forces in terms of alteration of the virtual photon cloud surrounding the atom by the wall and the Doppler effect.

• Received 17 March 2003

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.68.062101