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, non-thermal-like 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.

We investigate the Casimir-Polder interaction energy between a uniformly accelerated two-level system and an infinite plate with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Our model is a two-level atom interacting with a massless scalar field, with a uniform acceleration in a direction parallel to the plate. We consider the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and of the radiation reaction field to the atom-wall Casimir-Polder interaction, and we discuss their dependence on the acceleration of the atom. We show that, as a consequence of the noninertial motion of the two-level atom, a thermal term is present in the vacuum fluctuation contribution to the Casimir-Polder interaction. Finally we discuss the relevance of this result for the Unruh effect