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Nonlocality and the Rotating Wave Approximation

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Abstract

The effect of the rotating-wave approximation (RWA) on the coupling between an atom and the electromagnetic field is studied in the dipole approximation. It is demonstrated that use of the RWA results in an explicitly nonlocal interaction.

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  12. Note that it is possible to have a field driven by a nonlocal source without having any real nonlocality in the system, if the field is not a properly observable quantity. For example, the standard Lagrangian of classical electrodynamics in the Coulomb gauge leads to a wave equation for the vector potential which is driven by the nonlocal transverse current density; however, as the vector potential is not a properly observable quantity, this is not indicative of any real nonlocality. The case discussed here is different, because it is the observable fields themselves, not the potentials, which are driven by nonlocal sources.

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Clerk, A.A., Sipe, J.E. Nonlocality and the Rotating Wave Approximation. Foundations of Physics 28, 639–651 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018717823725

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1018717823725

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