8 pages, 3 figures, contribution to QFEXT07 proceedings, v2: discussion switched from Casimir energy to Casimir force, new analytical results included, matches JPhysA version
We present first worldline analytical and numerical results for the nontrivial interplay between geometry and temperature dependencies of the Casimir effect. We show that the temperature dependence of the Casimir force can be significantly larger for open geometries (e.g., perpendicular plates) than for closed geometries (e.g., parallel plates). For surface separations in the experimentally relevant range, the thermal correction for the perpendicular-plates configuration exhibits a stronger parameter dependence and exceeds that for parallel plates by an order of magnitude at room temperature. This effect can be attributed to the fact that the fluctuation spectrum for closed geometries is gapped, inhibiting the thermal excitation of modes at low temperatures. By contrast, open geometries support a thermal excitation of the low-lying modes in the gapless spectrum already at low temperatures.
We investigate the nontrivial interplay between geometry and temperature in the Casimir effect for the sphere-plate and cylinder-plate configurations. At low temperature, the thermal contribution to the Casimir force is dominated by this interplay, implying that standard approximation techniques such as the PFA are inapplicable even in the limit of small surface separation. Thermal fluctuations on scales of the thermal wavelength lead to a delocalization of the thermal force density at low temperatures. As a consequence, the temperature dependence strongly differs from naive expectations. Most…
We discuss Casimir phenomena which are dominated by long-range fluctuations. A prime example is given by "geothermal" Casimir phenomena where thermal fluctuations in open Casimir geometries can induce significantly enhanced thermal corrections. We illustrate the underlying mechanism with the aid of the inclined-plates configuration, giving rise to enhanced power-law temperature dependences compared to the parallel-plates case. In limiting cases, we find numerical evidence even for fractional power laws induced by long-range fluctuations. We demonstrate that thermal energy densities for open ge…
We show that the Casimir, or zero-point, energy of a dilute dielectric ball, or of a spherical bubble in a dielectric medium, coincides with the sum of the van der Waals energies between the molecules that make up the medium. That energy, which is finite and repulsive when self-energy and surface effects are removed, may be unambiguously calculated by either dimensional continuation or by zeta function regularization. This physical interpretation of the Casimir energy seems unambiguous evidence that the bulk self-energy cannot be relevant to sonoluminescence.
We discuss four different, though related, fundamental topics related to the Casimir effect: 1) We suggest that the application of Casimir theory to real dielectric materials, thus implying the atomic spacing as a course-grained length parameter, makes it natural to assume that this parameter is of the same order of magnitude as the QFT time-splitting parameter multiplied with the velocity of light. 2) We show that application of Casimir theory to a thick fluid shell (apparently a closed mechanical system), leads actually to an unstable situation if not extra mechanical forces, typically surfa…
Modes have steadily influenced the understanding of physical systems through time. At least since the prediction of the Casimir effect, they also play a very important role in Casimir Physics and in the understanding of the different phenomena typical of this research field. At equilibrium modes provide a direct connection between the zero-point energy and the existence of irreducible fluctuations in a quantum system, offering an anatomic view into the physics of the interaction. In nonequilibrium systems, modes can be decisive to understand the behavior of quantum fluctuation-induced phenomen…
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.
We propose a definitive test of whether plates involved in Casimir experiments should be modeled with ballistic or diffusive electrons--a prominent controversy highlighted by a number of conflicting experiments. The unambiguous test we propose is a measurement of the Casimir force between a disordered quasi-2D metallic plate and a three-dimensional metallic system at low temperatures, in which disorder-induced weak localization effects modify the well-known Drude result in an experimentally tunable way. We calculate the weak localization correction to the Casimir force as a function of magneti…
We give a comprehensive presentation of methods for calculating the Casimir force to arbitrary accuracy, for any number of objects, arbitrary shapes, susceptibility functions, and separations. The technique is applicable to objects immersed in media other than vacuum, to nonzero temperatures, and to spatial arrangements in which one object is enclosed in another. Our method combines each object's classical electromagnetic scattering amplitude with universal translation matrices, which convert between the bases used to calculate scattering for each object, but are otherwise independent of the d…
As part of our program to develop the description of three-body effects in quantum vacuum phenomena, we study the three-body interaction of two anisotropically polarizable atoms with a perfect electrically conducting plate, a generalization of earlier work. Three- and four-scattering effects are important, and lead to nonmonotonic behavior.
We study cooperative phenomena in the fluctuation-induced forces between a surface and a system of neutral two-level quantum emitters prepared in a coherent collective state, showing that the total Casimir-Polder force on the emitters can be modified via their mutual correlations. Particularly, we find that a collection of emitters prepared in a super- or subradiant state experiences an enhanced or suppressed collective vacuum-induced force, respectively. The collective nature of dispersion forces can be understood as resulting from the interference between the different processes contributing…
Advanced Science Research Center, Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA)（日本原子力机构先进科学研究中心）；Research Center for Nuclear Physics, Osaka University（大阪大学核物理研究中心）；RIKEN Center for Computational Science（理化学研究所计算科学中心）
We investigate analytically and numerically the nonstationary circuit QED setup in which $N$ independent qubits interact with a single mode of the Electromagnetic field confined in a resonator. We consider the harmonic time modulation of some parameter (atomic transition frequency or the atom-field coupling strength) and derive the unitary dynamics up to the second order in the modulation depth for $N=1$ and $N\gg 1$. It is shown that all the resonant phenomena that occur for modulation frequencies $\sim 2ω_{0}$ (where $ω_{0}$ is the cavity frequency) also occur for the halved frequencies. How…
In this paper, we generalized the surface integral equation method for the evaluation of Casimir force in arbitrary three-dimensional geometries. Similar to the two-dimensional case, the evaluation of the mean Maxwell stress tensor is cast into solving a series of three-dimensional scattering problems. The formulation and solution of the three-dimensional scattering problem is well-studied in classical computational electromagnetics. This paper demonstrates that this quantum electrodynamic phenomena can be studied using the knowledge and techniques of classical electrodynamics.
We propose a method of achieving large temperature sensitivity in the Casimir force that involves measuring the stable separation between dielectric objects immersed in fluid. We study the Casimir force between slabs and spheres using realistic material models, and find large > 2nm/K variations in their stable separations (hundreds of nanometers) near room temperature. In addition, we analyze the effects of Brownian motion on suspended objects, and show that the average separation is also sensitive to changes in temperature . Finally, this approach also leads to rich qualitative phenomena, suc…
We present new results for Casimir forces between rigid bodies which impose Dirichlet boundary conditions on a fluctuating scalar field. As a universal computational tool, we employ worldline numerics which builds on a combination of the string-inspired worldline approach with Monte-Carlo techniques. Worldline numerics is not only particularly powerful for inhomogeneous background configurations such as involved Casimir geometries, it also provides for an intuitive picture of quantum-fluctuation-induced phenomena. Results for the Casimir geometries of a sphere above a plate and a new perpendic…
We propose an approach for investigation of interaction of thin material films with quantum electrodynamic fields. Using main principles of quantum electrodynamics (locality, gauge invariance, renormalizability) we construct a single model for Casimir-like phenomena arising near the film boundary on distances much larger then Compton wavelength of the electron where fluctuations of Dirac fields are not essential. In this model the thin film is presented by a singular background field concentrated on a 2-dimensional surface. All properties of the film material are described by one dimensionless…
The phenomena implied by the existence of quantum vacuum fluctuations, grouped under the title of the Casimir effect, are reviewed, with emphasis on new results discovered in the past four years. The Casimir force between parallel plates is rederived as the strong-coupling limit of $δ$-function potential planes. The role of surface divergences is clarified. A summary of effects relevant to measurements of the Casimir force between real materials is given, starting from a geometrical optics derivation of the Lifshitz formula, and including a rederivation of the Casimir-Polder forces. A great de…
We consider the nonstationary circuit QED setup in which a 3-level artificial atom in the $Δ$-configuration interacts with a single-mode cavity field of natural frequency $ω$. It is demonstrated that when some atomic energy level(s) undergoes a weak harmonic modulation, photons can be generated from vacuum via effective 1- and 3-photon transitions, while the atom remains approximately in the ground state. These phenomena occur in the dispersive regime when the modulation frequency is accurately tuned near $ω$ and $3ω$, respectively, and the generated field states exhibit strikingly different s…
We develop a microscopic toy model for Cavity dynamical Casimir effect (DCE), namely, the photon generation from vacuum due to a nonstationary dielectric slab in a fixed single mode cavity. We represent the slab by $N\gg 1$ noninteracting two-level atoms coupled to the field via the standard dipole interaction. We show that the DCE is contained implicitly in the light-matter interaction Hamiltonian when its parameters are externally prescribed functions of time. We also predict several new phenomena, such as saturation of the photon growth due to effective Kerr nonlinearity, generation of pair…
We theoretically predict that the Casimir force in vacuum between two Chern insulator plates can be repulsive (attractive) at long distances whenever the sign of the Chern numbers characterizing the two plates are opposite (equal). A unique feature of this system is that the sign of the force can be tuned simply by turning over one of the plates or alternatively by electrostatic doping. We calculate and take into account the full optical response of the plates and argue that such repulsion is a general phenomena for these systems as it relies on the quantized zero frequency Hall conductivity. …
We consider the interaction of a qubit with a single mode of the quantized electromagnetic field and show that, in the ultrastrong coupling regime and when the qubit-field interaction is switched on abruptly, the dynamical Casimir effect leads to the generation of a variety of exotic states of the field, which cannot be simply described as squeezed states. Such effect also appears when initially both the qubit and the field are in their ground state. The non-classicality of the obtained exotic states is characterized by means of a parameter based on the volume of the negative part of the Wigne…
We present an analytical and numerical analysis of the particle creation in a cavity ended with two SQUIDs, both subjected to time dependent magnetic fields. In the linear and lossless regime, the problem can be modeled by a free quantum field in $1+1$ dimensions, in the presence of boundary conditions that involve a time dependent linear combination of the field and its spatial and time derivatives. We consider a situation in which the boundary conditions at both ends are periodic functions of time, focusing on interesting features as the dependence of the rate of particle creation with the c…
We study novel type of contributions to the partition function of the Maxwell system defined on a small compact manifold ${\mathbb{M}}$ such as torus. These new terms can not be described in terms of the physical propagating photons with two transverse polarizations. Rather, these novel contributions emerge as a result of tunnelling events when transitions occur between topologically different but physically identical vacuum winding states. These new terms give an extra contribution to the Casimir pressure, yet to be measured. We argue that if the same system is considered in the background of…
We review some quantum electrodynamical effects related to the uniform acceleration of atoms in vacuum. After discussing the energy level shifts of a uniformly accelerated atom in vacuum, we investigate the atom-wall Casimir-Polder force for accelerated atoms, and the van der Waals/Casimir-Polder interaction between two accelerated atoms. The possibility of detecting the Unruh effect through these phenomena is also discussed in detail.
The existence of irreducible field fluctuations in vacuum is an important prediction of quantum theory. These fluctuations have many observable consequences, like the Casimir effect which is now measured with good accuracy and agreement with theory, provided that the latter accounts for differences between real experiments and the ideal situation considered by Casimir. But the vacuum energy density calculated by adding field mode energies is much larger than the density observed around us through gravitational phenomena. This ``vacuum catastrophe'' is one of the unsolved problems at the interf…
A path integral formulation is developed for the dynamic Casimir effect. It allows us to study arbitrary deformations in space and time of the perfectly reflecting (conducting) boundaries of a cavity. The mechanical response of the intervening vacuum is calculated to linear order in the frequency-wavevector plane, using which a plethora of interesting phenomena can be studied. For a single corrugated plate we find a correction to mass at low frequencies, and an effective shear viscosity at high frequencies that are both anisotropic. The anisotropy is set by the wavevector of the corrugation. F…
We study the influence of the electromagnetic vacuum force on the behaviour of a model device based on materials, like germanium tellurides, that undergo fast and reversible metal-insulator transitions on passing from the crystalline to the amorphous phase. The calculations are performed at finite temperature and fully accounting for the behaviour of the material dielectric functions. The results show that the transition can be exploited to extend the distance and energy ranges under which the device can be operated without undergoing stiction phenomena. We discuss the approximation involved i…
