{"paper":{"title":"Multipole expansion for dispersion forces -- watch this trace","license":"http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["physics.atom-ph"],"primary_cat":"quant-ph","authors_text":"Athanasios Laliotis, Chris Boldt, Jivesh Kaushal, Paolo Pedri, Stefan Scheel","submitted_at":"2025-08-21T10:03:28Z","abstract_excerpt":"Light-matter interaction models invariably rely on the multipole expansion of the electromagnetic potentials generated by complex charge distributions. These multipoles are typically taken to be traceless, however, for a correct evaluation of dispersion forces at all distances, the validity of this assumption has to be checked carefully. Here, we revisit the concept of dispersion forces on an atom near a dielectric surface from the perspective of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics and find that, beyond the quadrupole, the multipoles cannot always be taken as fully traceless. In particular, we"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2508.15410","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2508.15410/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}