Unruh effect of detectors with quantized center of mass

Abstract

The Unruh effect is the prediction that particle detectors accelerated through the vacuum get excited by the apparent presence of radiation quanta -- a fundamental quantum phenomenon in the presence of acceleration. Prior treatments of the Unruh effect, that presume a classically prescribed trajectory, do not account for the quantum dynamics of the detector's center-of-mass. Here, we study more realistic detectors whose center of mass is a quantized degree of freedom being accelerated by an external classical field. We investigate the detector's recoil due to the emission of Unruh quanta. Vice versa, we also study the recoil's impact on the emission of Unruh quanta and the excitation of the detector. We find that the recoil due to the emission of Unruh quanta may be a relevant experimental signature of the Unruh effect.