We study Casimir forces on the partition in a closed box (piston) with perfect metallic boundary conditions. Related closed geometries have generated interest as candidates for a repulsive force. By using an optical path expansion we solve exactly the case of a piston with a rectangular cross section, and find that the force always attracts the partition to the nearest base. For arbitrary cross sections, we can use an expansion for the density of states to compute the force in the limit of small height to width ratios. The corrections to the force between parallel plates are found to have interesting dependence on the shape of the cross section. Finally, for temperatures in the range of experimental interest we compute finite temperature corrections to the force (again assuming perfect boundaries).
We consider a massless scalar field obeying Dirichlet boundary conditions on the walls of a two-dimensional L x b rectangular box, divided by a movable partition (piston) into two compartments of dimensions a x b and (L-a) x b. We compute the Casimir force on the piston in the limit L -> infinity. Regardless of the value of a/b, the piston is attracted to the nearest end of the box. Asymptotic expressions for the Casimir force on the piston are derived for a << b and a >> b.
Casimir pistons are models in which finite Casimir forces can be calculated without any suspect renormalizations. It has been suggested that such forces are always attractive. We present three scenarios in which that is not true. Two of these depend on mixing two types of boundary conditions. The other, however, is a simple type of quantum graph in which the sign of the force depends upon the number of edges.
We study the Casimir piston for massless scalar fields obeying Dirichlet boundary conditions in a three dimensional cavity with sides of arbitrary lengths $a,b$ and $c$ where $a$ is the plate separation. We obtain an exact expression for the Casimir force on the piston valid for any values of the three lengths. As in the electromagnetic case with perfect conductor conditions, we find that the Casimir force is negative (attractive) regardless of the values of $a$, $b$ and $c$. Though cases exist where the interior contributes a positive (repulsive) Casimir force, the total Casimir force on the …
This manuscript has been withdrawn, since the authors have detected numerical inaccuracies that invalidate their main results concerning the existence of repulsive Casimir forces within a rectangular piston. Formulas presented in the manuscript keep still valid. The authors deeply apologize for this mistake.
Perfect magnetic conductor (PMC) boundary conditions are dual to the more familiar perfect electric conductor (PEC) conditions and can be viewed as the electromagnetic analog of the boundary conditions in the bag model for hadrons in QCD. Recent advances and requirements in communication technologies have attracted great interest in PMC's and Casimir experiments involving structures that approximate PMC's may be carried out in the not too distant future. In this paper, we make a study of the zero-temperature PMC Casimir piston in $d+1$ dimensions. The PMC Casimir energy is explicitly evaluated…
In this work we study the Casimir effect for massless scalar fields propagating in a piston geometry of the type $I\times N$ where $I$ is an interval of the real line and $N$ is a smooth compact Riemannian manifold. Our analysis represents a generalization of previous results obtained for pistons configurations as we consider all possible boundary conditions that are allowed to be imposed on the scalar fields. We employ the spectral zeta function formalism in the framework of scattering theory in order to obtain an expression for the Casimir energy and the corresponding Casimir force on the pi…
Recently, a method based on stochastic quantization has been proposed to compute the Casimir force and its fluctuations in arbitrary geometries. It relies on the spectral decomposition of the Laplacian operator in the given geometry. Both quantum and thermal fluctuations are considered. Here we use such method to compute the Casimir force on the plates of a finite piston of arbitrary cross section. Asymptotic expressions valid at low and high temperatures and short and long distances are obtained. The case of a piston with triangular cross section is analysed in detail. The regularization of t…
A piston is introduced into a spherical lune Casimir cavity turning it into two adjacent lunes separated by the (hemispherical) piston. On the basis of zeta function regularisation, the vacuum energy of the arrangement is finite for conformal propagation in space-time. For even spheres this energy is independent of the angle of the lune. For odd dimensions it is shown that for all Neumann, or all Dirichlet, boundary conditions the piston is attracted or repelled by the nearest wall if d=3,7,... or if d=1,5,..., respectively. For hybrid N-D conditions these requirements are switched. If a mass …
Using a multidimensional cut-off technique, we obtain expressions for the cut-off dependent part of the vacuum energy for parallelepiped geometries in any spatial dimension d. The cut-off part yields nonrenormalizable hypersurface divergences and we show explicitly that they cancel in the Casimir piston scenario in all dimensions. We obtain two different expressions for the d-dimensional Casimir force on the piston where one expression is more convenient to use when the plate separation a is large and the other when a is small (a useful $a \to 1/a$ duality). The Casimir force on the piston is …
We have computed numerically the Casimir force between two identical pistons inside a very long cylinder, considering different shapes for the pistons. The pistons can be considered as quantum billiards, whose spectrum determines the vacuum force. The smooth part of the spectrum fixes the force at short distances, and depends only on geometric quantities like the area or perimeter of the piston. However, correcting terms to the force, coming from the oscillating part of the spectrum which is related to the classical dynamics of the billiard, are qualitatively different for classically integrab…
We study the Casimir force in piston-like geometries semiclassically. The force on the piston is finite and physical, but to leading semiclassical approximation depends strongly on the shape of the surrounding cavity. Whereas this force is attractive for pistons in a parallelepiped with flat cylinder head, for which the semiclassical approximation by periodic orbits is exact, this approximation to the force on the piston vanishes for a semi-cylindrical head and becomes repulsive for a cylinder of circular cross section with a hemispherical head. In leading semiclassical approximation the sign …
We consider the Casimir energy due to a massless scalar field in a geometry of an infinite wedge closed by a Dirichlet circular cylinder, where the wedge is formed by $δ$-function potentials, so-called semitransparent boundaries. A finite expression for the Casimir energy corresponding to the arc and the presence of both semitransparent potentials is obtained, from which the torque on the sidewalls can be derived. The most interesting part of the calculation is the nontrivial nature of the angular mode functions. Numerical results are obtained which are closely analogous to those recently foun…
The Casimir force due to a scalar field on a piston in a cylinder of radius $r$ with a spherical cap of radius $R>r$ is computed numerically in the world-line approach. A geometrical subtraction scheme gives the finite interaction energy that determines the Casimir force. The spectral function of convex domains is obtained from a probability measure on convex surfaces that is induced by the Wiener measure on Brownian bridges the convex surfaces are the hulls of. The vacuum force on the piston by a scalar field satisfying Dirichlet boundary conditions is attractive in these geometries, but the …
We evaluate the Casimir energy and force for a massive scalar field with general curvature coupling parameter, subject to Robin boundary conditions on two codimension-one parallel plates, located on a $(D+1)$-dimensional background spacetime with an arbitrary internal space. The most general case of different Robin coefficients on the two separate plates is considered. With independence of the geometry of the internal space, the Casimir forces are seen to be attractive for special cases of Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions on both plates and repulsive for Dirichlet boundary conditions o…
We consider the ground state energy of the electromagnetic field in a piston geometry. In the idealised case, where the piston and the walls of the chamber are taken as perfect mirrors, the Casimir pressure on the piston is finite and independent of the small scale physics of the media that compose the mirrors; the Casimir-energy of the system can be regularised and is cutoff-independent. Yet we find that, when the body of the piston is filled with an inhomogeneous dielectric medium, the Casimir energy is cutoff-dependent, and the value of the pressure is thus inextricably dependent on the det…
We review various applications of the multiple scattering approach to the calculation of Casimir forces between separate bodies, including dispersion, wedge geometries, annular pistons, and temperature dependence. Exact results are obtained in many cases.
Recent experimental realizations of uniform confining potentials for ultracold atoms make it possible to create quantum acoustic resonators and explore nonequilibrium dynamics of quantum field theories. These systems offer a promising new platform for studying the dynamical Casimir effect, since they allow to achieve relativistic, i.e. near sonic, velocities of the boundaries. In comparison to previously studied optical and classical hydrodynamic systems ultracold atoms allow to realize a broader class of dynamical experiments combining both classical driving and vacuum squeezing. In this pape…
We study the Casimir force acting on a conducting piston with arbitrary cross section. We find the exact solution for a rectangular cross section and the first three terms in the asymptotic expansion for small height to width ratio when the cross section is arbitrary. Though weakened by the presence of the walls, the Casimir force turns out to be always attractive. Claims of repulsive Casimir forces for related configurations, like the cube, are invalidated by cutoff dependence.
In this paper we show how the stochastic quantization method developed by Parisi and Wu can be used to obtain Casimir forces. Both quantum and thermal fluctuations are taken into account by a Langevin equation for the field. The method allows the Casimir force to be obtained directly, derived from the stress tensor instead of the free energy. It only requires the spectral decomposition of the Laplacian operator in the given geometry. The formalism provides also an expression for the fluctuations of the force. As an application we compute the Casimir force on the plates of a finite piston of ar…
The Casimir force due to a massless scalar field satisfying Dirichlet boundary conditions may attract or repel a piston in the neck of a flask-like container. Using the world-line formalism this behavior is related to the competing contribution to the interaction energy of two types of Brownian bridges. It qualitatively is also expected from attractive long-range two-body forces between constituents of the boundary. A geometric subtraction scheme is presented that avoids divergent contributions to the interaction energy and classifies the Brownian bridges that contribute to the force. These ar…
We discuss repulsive Casimir forces between dielectric materials with non trivial magnetic susceptibility. It is shown that considerations based on naive pair-wise summation of Van der Waals and Casimir Polder forces may not only give an incorrect estimate of the magnitude of the total Casimir force, but even the wrong sign of the force when materials with high dielectric and magnetic response are involved. Indeed repulsive Casimir forces may be found in a large range of parameters, and we suggest that the effect may be realized in known materials. The phenomenon of repulsive Casimir forces ma…
Several problems at the interface between the field-theoretical description of the Casimir effect and experiments on measuring the Casimir force are discussed. One of these problems is connected with the definition of the Casimir free energy in ideal metal rectangular boxes satisfying the general physical requirements. It is shown that the consideration of rectangular boxes with a partition (piston) does not negate the previously known results obtained for boxes without a piston. Both sets of results are found to be in mutual agreement. Another problem is related to the use of the proximity fo…
A novel approach for calculating Casimir forces between periodically deformed objects is developed. This approach allows, for the first time, a rigorous non-perturbative treatment of the Casimir effect for disconnected objects beyond Casimir's original two-plate configuration. The approach takes into account the collective nature of fluctuation induced forces, going beyond the commonly used pairwise summation of two-body van der Waals forces. As an application of the method, we exactly calculate the Casimir force due to scalar field fluctuations between a flat and a rectangular corrugated plat…
Our preceding paper introduced a method to compute Casimir forces in arbitrary geometries and for arbitrary materials that was based on a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) scheme. In this manuscript, we focus on the efficient implementation of our method for geometries of practical interest and extend our previous proof-of-concept algorithm in one dimension to problems in two and three dimensions, introducing a number of new optimizations. We consider Casimir piston-like problems with nonmonotonic and monotonic force dependence on sidewall separation, both for previously solved geometries t…
We demonstrate that the approach by Rodrigues et al. (PRL, v.96, 100402, 2006) to the description of the lateral Casimir force between corrugated surfaces is in disagreement with a path-integral theory by Emig et al. (PRA, v.67, 022114, 2003), and the approximations used are not appropriate for comparison to experiment.
We show how to compute Casimir forces at nonzero temperatures with time-domain electromagnetic simulations, for example using a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Compared to our previous zero-temperature time-domain method, only a small modification is required, but we explain that some care is required to properly capture the zero-frequency contribution. We validate the method against analytical and numerical frequency-domain calculations, and show a surprising high-temperature disappearance of a non-monotonic behavior previously demonstrated in a piston-like geometry.
Casimir pistons are models in which finite Casimir forces can be calculated without any suspect renormalizations. It has been suggested that such forces are always attractive, but we present several counterexamples, notably a simple type of quantum graph in which the sign of the force depends upon the number of edges. We also show that Casimir forces in quantum graphs can be reliably computed by summing over the classical orbits, and study the rate of convergence of the periodic orbit expansion. In generic situations where no analytic expression is available, the sign and approximate magnitude…
Various applications of the multiple scattering technique to calculating Casimir energy are described. These include the interaction between dilute bodies of various sizes and shapes, temperature dependence, interactions with multilayered and corrugated bodies, and new examples of exactly solvable separable bodies.
Casimir forces are a manifestation of the change in the zero-point energy of the vacuum caused by the insertion of boundaries. We show how the Casimir force can be computed by consideration of the vacuum fluctuations that are suppressed by the boundaries, and rederive the scalar Casimir effects for a series of geometries. For the planar case a finite universal force is automatically found. For curved geometries formally divergent expressions are encountered which we argue are largely due to the divergent self-energy of the boundary contributing to the force. This idea is supported by computing…
In a recent letter, Martin and Zagrebnov [Europhys. Lett., 73 (2006) 1] discussed the thermodynamic Casimir effect for the ideal Bose gas confined in a thin film. We point out that their findings can be expressed in terms of previous general results for the Casimir effect induced by confined critical fluctuations. This highlights the links between the Casimir effect in the contexts of critical phenomena and Bose-Einstein condensation.
The Casimir effect for a massless scalar field on the helix boundary condition which is named as quantum spring is studied in our recent paper\cite{Feng}. In this paper, the Casimir effect of the quantum spring is investigated in $(D+1)$-dimensional spacetime for the massless and massive scalar fields by using the zeta function techniques. We obtain the exact results of the Casimir energy and Casimir force for any $D$, which indicate a $Z_2$ symmetry of the two space dimensions. The Casimir energy and Casimir force have different expressions for odd and even dimensional space in the massless c…
We investigate the Casimir force between two dissimilar plane mirrors the material properties of which are described by Drude or Lorentz models. We calculate analytically the short and long distance asymptote of the force and relate its behavior to the influence of interacting surface plasmons. In particular we discuss conditions under which Casimir repulsion could be achieved.
We argue that the appropriate variable to study a non trivial geometry dependence of the Casimir force is the lateral component of the Casimir force, which we evaluate between two corrugated metallic plates outside the validity of the Proximity Force Approximation (PFA). The metallic plates are described by the plasma model, with arbitrary values for the plasma wavelength, the plate separation and the corrugation period, the corrugation amplitude remaining the smallest length scale. Our analysis shows that in realistic experimental situations the Proximity Force Approximation overestimates the…
In this study, we have derived close form of the Casimir force for the non-interacting ideal Bose gas between two slabs in harmonic-optical lattice potential by using Ketterle and van Druten approximation. We find that Bose-Einstein condensation temperature $T_{c}$ is a critical point for different physical behavior of the Casimir force. We have shown that Casimir force of confined Bose gas in the presence of the harmonic-optical potential decays with inversely proportional to $d^{5}$ when $T\leq T_{c}$. However, in the case of $T>T_{c}$, it decays exponentially depends on separation $d$ of th…
This Resource Letter provides a guide to the literature on van der Waals and Casimir-Polder forces. Journal articles, books, and other documents are cited on the following topics: van der Waals forces, retarded dispersion forces or Casimir-Polder forces between atoms or molecules, Casimir-Polder forces between a molecule and a dielectric or conducting body, the summation of Casimir-Polder forces as leading to the Casimir and Lifshitz forces between conducting and dielectric bodies, Casimir friction, applications to nanotechnology, the nature of the quantum vacuum, and experimental tests of the…
We explore the scattering approach to Casimir forces. Our main tool is the description of Casimir energy in terms of transition operators, as presented in Kenneth and Klich, Phys. Rev. Lett. 97, 160401 (2006). We study the convergence properties of the formula and how to utilize it, together with scattering data to compute the force. We illustrate the approach by describing the force between scatterers in 1d and 3d,, and in particular show how it may be applied in order to study the interaction between two spherical bodies at all distances.
Rectangular cavities are solvable models that nevertheless touch on many of the controversial or mysterious aspects of the vacuum energy of quantum fields. This paper is a thorough study of the two-dimensional scalar field in a rectangle by the method of images, or closed classical (or optical) paths, which is exact in this case. For each point r and each specularly reflecting path beginning and ending at r, we provide formulas for all components of the stress tensor T_{μν}(r), for all values of the curvature coupling constant ξand all values of an ultraviolet cutoff parameter. Arbitrary combi…
We present a method of computing Casimir forces for arbitrary geometries, with any desired accuracy, that can directly exploit the efficiency of standard numerical-electromagnetism techniques. Using the simplest possible finite-difference implementation of this approach, we obtain both agreement with past results for cylinder-plate geometries, and also present results for new geometries. In particular, we examine a piston-like problem involving two dielectric and metallic squares sliding between two metallic walls, in two and three dimensions, respectively, and demonstrate non-additive and non…
We critically discuss the common belief that the thermal Casimir-Polder force can always be represented as a Matsubara sum, as it is true for the Casimir force. On the contrary, an exact treatment of the atom-field coupling reveals that for a ground-state atom, terms associated with virtual-photon absorption contribute to the force which are identified as a signature of non-equilibrium dynamics. Even the equilibrium force on a thermalized atom or molecule may be overestimated when using the ground-state polarizability instead of its thermal counterpart.
Using a recently developed theory of the Casimir force (Raabe C and Welsch D-G 2005 Phys. Rev. A 71 013814), we calculate the force that acts on a plate in front of a planar wall and the force that acts on the plate in the case where the plate is part of matter that fills the space in front of the wall. We show that in the limit of a dielectric plate whose permittivity is close to unity, the force obtained in the former case reduces to the ordinary, i.e., unscreened Casimir-Polder force acting on isolated atoms. In the latter case, the theory yields the Casimir-Polder force that is screened by…
A 3D finite-element numerical simulation was developed to investigate Casimir forces in arbitrary geometries. The code was verified comparing it with results obtained from analytical equations. Appling the simulation to previously not assessed configurations, new Casimir properties were found such as repulsive Casimir forces in groove like structures.
We calculated the force of the quantum vacuum, the Casimir force, in a spherically symmetric medium, Maxwell's fish eye, surrounded by a perfect mirror and derived an exact analytic solution. Our solution questions the idea that the Casimir force of a spherical mirror is repulsive - we found an attractive force that diverges at the mirror.
We show that the Casimir force between mirrors with arbitrary frequency dependent reflectivities obeys bounds due to causality and passivity properties. The force is always smaller than the Casimir force between two perfectly reflecting mirrors. For narrow-band mirrors in particular, the force is found to decrease with the mirrors bandwidth.
By using silicon oxide based aerogels we show numerically that the Casimir force can be reduced several orders of magnitude, making its effect negligible in nanodevices. This decrease in the Casimir force is also present even when the aerogels are deposited on metallic substrates. To calculate the Casimir force we model the dielectric function of silicon oxide aerogels using an effective medium dielectric function such as the Clausius-Mossotti approximation. The results show that both the porosity of the aerogel and its thickness can be use as control parameters to reduce the magnitude of the …
The Casimir force for charge-neutral, perfect conductors of non-planar geometric configurations have been investigated. The configurations are: (1) the plate-hemisphere, (2) the hemisphere-hemisphere and (3) the spherical shell. The resulting Casimir forces for these physical arrangements have been found to be attractive. The repulsive Casimir force found by Boyer for a spherical shell is a special case requiring stringent material property of the sphere, as well as the specific boundary conditions for the wave modes inside and outside of the sphere. The necessary criteria in detecting Boyer's…
We investigate repulsive Casimir force between slabs containing left-handed materials with controllable electromagnetic properties. The sign of Casimir force is determined by the electric and magnetic properties of the materials, and it is shown that the formation of the repulsive force is related to the wave impedances of two slabs. The sign change of the Casimir force as a function of the distance is studied. Special emphasis is put on the restoring Casimir force which may be found to exist between perfectly conducting material and metamaterial slabs. This restoring force is a natural power …
We describe a numerical method to compute Casimir forces in arbitrary geometries, for arbitrary dielectric and metallic materials, with arbitrary accuracy (given sufficient computational resources). Our approach, based on well-established integration of the mean stress tensor evaluated via the fluctuation-dissipation theorem, is designed to directly exploit fast methods developed for classical computational electromagnetism, since it only involves repeated evaluation of the Green's function for imaginary frequencies (equivalently, real frequencies in imaginary time). We develop the approach by…
We study the nonequilibrium Casimir-Polder force on an atom prepared in an incoherent superposition of internal energy-eigenstates, which is placed in a magnetoelectric environment of nonuniform temperature. After solving the coupled atom--field dynamics within the framework of macroscopic quantum electrodynamics, we derive a general expression for the thermal Casimir-Polder force.
We describe experimental and related theoretical work on the measurement of the Casimir force using semiconductor test bodies. This field of research started in 2005 and several important and interesting results have already been obtained. Specifically, the Casimir force or its gradient were measured in the configuration of an Au-coated sphere and different semiconductor surfaces. It was found that the force magnitude depends significantly on the replacement of the metal with a semiconductor and on the concentration of charge carriers in the semiconductor material. Special attention is paid to…
We derive the Casimir force expression from Maxwell's stress tensor by means of original quantum-electro-dynamical cavity modes. In contrast with similar calculations, our method is straightforward and does not rely on intricate mathematical extrapolation relations.
Linear in temperature correction to the Casimir force is discussed. The correction is important for small separations between bodies tested in the recent experiments and disappears in the case of perfect conductors.
The widely-adopted proximity-force approximation (PFA) to estimate normal Casimir forces is known to be asymptotically exact at vanishing separations. In this letter, we propose a correction to the PFA, which is sufficiently accurate in predicting displacement-induced lateral Casimir forces between a sphere and a grating, for separation-to-radius ratio up to 0.5, far beyond the limit within which the application of PFA is previously restricted. Our result allows convenient estimation of Casimir interactions and thus shall be useful in relevant experimental and engineering Casimir applications.…
In this paper we review the role of magneto plasmon polaritons in the Casimir force calculations. By applying an external constant magnetic field a strong optical anisotropy is induced on two parallel slabs reducing the reflectivity and thus the Casimir force. As the external magnetic field increases, the Casimir force decreases. Thus, with an an external magnetic field the Casimir force can be controlled.The calculations are done in the Voigt configuration where the magnetic field is parallel to the slabs. In this configuration the reflection coefficients for TE and TM modes do not show mode …
It is well known that residual electrostatic forces create significant difficulties to precise measurements of the Casimir force and to wide use of Casimir-operated microdevices. We experimentally demonstrate that with the help of Ar-ion cleaning of the surfaces it is possible to make electrostatic effects negligibly small as compared to the Casimir interaction. Our experimental setup consists of the dynamic atomic force microscope supplemented with an Ar-ion gun and argon reservoir. The residual potential difference between the Au-coated surfaces of a sphere and a plate was measured both befo…
The normal and tangential Casimir force for the rack gear is calculated numerically in the case of ideal boundary conditions for the electromagnetic field - perfect reflection on the boundaries. The resulting tangential force appears to be essentially shape dependent. Relatively small shape variations lead to the essential changes in tangential force, whereas normal force remains almost unchanged.
Recent progress in the simulation of Casimir forces between various objects has allowed traditional computational electromagnetic solvers to be used to find Casimir forces in arbitrary three-dimensional objects. The underlying theory to these approaches requires knowledge and manipulation of quantum field theory and statistical physics. We present a calculation of the Casimir force using the method of moments via the argument principle. This simplified derivation allows greater freedom in the moment matrix where the argument principle can be used to calculate Casimir forces for arbitrary geome…
We present theoretical and numerical results for the screened Casimir effect between perfect metal surfaces in a plasma. We show how the Casimir effect in an electron-positron plasma can provide an important contribution to nuclear interactions. Our results suggest that there is a connection between Casimir forces and nucleon forces mediated by mesons. Correct nuclear energies and meson masses appear to emerge naturally from the screened Casimir-Lifshitz effect.
We calculate the Casimir force on an isolated dielectric sphere in an ensemble of $N$ spheres due to multiple mutual interactions of the collection of spheres. In particular we consider dielectric spheres immersed in some other background dielectric. As an example, the Casimir force between two and three spheres at zero and finite temperature is evaluated. For a very large number of spheres, we consider a large-$N$ scaling limit of the Casimir force.
In this article we investigate the Casimir effect in the presence of a medium by quantizing the Electromagnetic (EM) field in the presence of a magnetodielectric medium by using the path integral formalism. For a given medium with definite electric and magnetic susceptibilities, explicit expressions for the Casimir force are obtained which are in agree with the original Casimir force between two conducting parallel plates immersed in the quantum electromagnetic vacuum.
