We study, in the multipolar coupling scheme, a uniformly accelerated multilevel hydrogen atom in interaction with the quantum electromagnetic field near a conducting boundary and separately calculate the contributions of the vacuum fluctuation and radiation reaction to the rate of change of the mean atomic energy. It is found that the perfect balance between the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction that ensures the stability of ground-state atoms is disturbed, making spontaneous transition of ground-state atoms to excited states possible in a vacuum with a conducting boundary. The boundary-induced contribution is effectively a nonthermal correction, which enhances or weakens the nonthermal effect already present in the unbounded case, thus possibly making the effect easier to observe. An interesting feature worth noting is that the nonthermal corrections may vanish for atoms on some particular trajectories.

• Received 6 June 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.74.044032