We study the resonance interaction between two uniformly accelerated identical atoms, one excited and the other in the ground state, prepared in a correlated (symmetric or antisymmetric) state and interacting with the scalar field or the electromagnetic field in the vacuum state. In this case (resonance interaction), the interatomic interaction is a second-order effect in the atom-field coupling. We separate the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the resonance energy shift of the system, and show that only radiation reaction contributes, while Unruh thermal fluctuations do not affect the resonance interaction. We also find that beyond a characteristic length scale related to the atomic acceleration, nonthermal effects in the radiation-reaction contribution change the distance dependence of the resonance interaction. Finally, we find that previously unidentified features appear, compared with the scalar field case, when the interaction with the electromagnetic field is considered, as a consequence of the peculiar nature of the vacuum quantum noise of the electromagnetic field in a relativistically accelerated background.

• Received 19 January 2016

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.94.012121