We derive rigorously explicit formulas of the Casimir free energy at finite temperature for massless scalar field and electromagnetic field confined in a closed rectangular cavity with different boundary conditions by zeta regularization method. We study both the low and high temperature expansions of the free energy. In each case, we write the free energy as a sum of a polynomial in temperature plus exponentially decay terms. We show that the free energy is always a decreasing function of temperature. In the cases of massless scalar field with Dirichlet boundary condition and electromagnetic field, the zero temperature Casimir free energy might be positive. In each of these cases, there is a unique transition temperature (as a function of the side lengths of the cavity) where the Casimir energy change from positive to negative. When the space dimension is equal to two and three, we show graphically the dependence of this transition temperature on the side lengths of the cavity. Finally we also show that we can obtain the results for a non-closed rectangular cavity by letting the size of some directions of a closed cavity going to infinity, and we find that these results agree with the usual integration prescription adopted by other authors.
New Casimir energy results for massless scalar field in some 3 -dimensional cavities are presented. We attempted to discuss the correlation between the sign and the magnitude of the energy and the shape of the cavities.
In this paper, we presented the zero- and first-order radiative corrections to the Casimir energy for a massive scalar field confined with Dirichlet boundary condition in an open-ended rectangular waveguide. In the calculation procedure, we applied a systematic renormalization program that allows all influences imposed by dominant boundary conditions in a problem be automatically reflected in the counterterms, leading the counterterms to be obtained in a position-dependent manner. To remove the appeared divergences in the computation task, the Box Subtraction Scheme as a regularization techniq…
In this paper we compute the leading order Casimir energy for the electromagnetic field (EM) in an open ended perfectly conducting rectangular waveguide in three spatial dimensions by a direct approach. For this purpose we first obtain the second quantized expression for the EM field with boundary conditions which would be appropriate for a waveguide. We then obtain the Casimir energy by two different procedures. Our main approach does not contain any analytic continuation techniques. The second approach involves the routine zeta function regularization along with some analytic continuation te…
Using scaling arguments and the property of self-similarity we derive the Casimir energies of Sierpinski triangles and Sierpinski rectangles. The Hausdorff-Besicovitch dimension (fractal dimension) of the Casimir energy is introduced and the Berry-Weyl conjecture is discussed for these geometries. We propose that for a class of fractals, comprising of compartmentalized cavities, it is possible to establish a finite value to the Casimir energy even while the Casimir energy of the individual cavities consists of divergent terms.
Eigenmodes of electromagnetic field with perfectly conducting or infinitely permeable conditions on the boundary of a D-dimensional spherically symmetric cavity is derived explicitly. It is shown that there are (D-2) polarizations for TE modes and one polarization for TM modes, giving rise to a total of (D-1) polarizations. In case of a D-dimensional ball, the eigenfrequencies of electromagnetic field with perfectly conducting boundary condition coincides with the eigenfrequencies of gauge one-forms with relative boundary condition; whereas the eigenfrequencies of electromagnetic field with in…
The energy of a perfectly conducting rectangular cavity is studied by making use of pistons' interactions. The exact solution for a 3D perfectly conducting piston with an arbitrary cross section is being discussed.
The Casimir force due to {\it thermal} fluctuations (or pseudo-Casimir force) was previously calculated for the perfect Bose gas in the slab geometry for various boundary conditions. The Casimir pressure due to {\it quantum} fluctuations in a weakly-interacting dilute Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) confined to a parallel plate geometry was recently calculated for Dirichlet boundary conditions. In this paper we calculate the Casimir energy and pressure due to quantum fluctuations in a zero-temperature homogeneous weakly-interacting dilute BEC confined to a parallel plate geometry with periodic …
We reexamine the Casimir effect for the rectangular cavity with two or three equal edges in the presence of compactified universal extra dimension. We derive the expressions for the Casimir energy and discuss the nature of Casimir force. We show the extra-dimension corrections to the standard Casimir effect.
This paper studies the finite temperature Casimir force acting on a rectangular piston associated with a massless fractional Klein-Gordon field at finite temperature. Dirichlet boundary conditions are imposed on the walls of a $d$-dimensional rectangular cavity, and a fractional Neumann condition is imposed on the piston that moves freely inside the cavity. The fractional Neumann condition gives an interpolation between the Dirichlet and Neumann conditions, where the Casimir force is known to be always attractive and always repulsive respectively. For the fractional Neumann boundary condition,…
A general calculation of Casimir energies --in an arbitrary number of dimensions-- for massless quantized fields in spherically symmetric cavities is carried out. All the most common situations, including scalar and spinor fields, the electromagnetic field, and various boundary conditions are treated with care. The final results are given as analytical (closed) expressions in terms of Barnes zeta functions. A direct, straightforward numerical evaluation of the formulas is then performed, which yields highly accurate numbers of, in principle, arbitrarily good precision.
In this paper we study the Casimir energy of a sample made by N cavities, with N >> 1, across the transition from the metallic to the superconducting phase of the constituting plates. After having characterized the energy for the configuration in which the layers constituting the cavities are made by dielectric and for the configuration in which the layers are made by plasma sheets, we concentrate our analysis on the latter. It represents the final step towards the macroscopic characterization of a "multi cavity" (with N large) necessary to fully understand the behaviour of the Casimir energy …
Zeta function regularization is an effective method to extract physical significant quantities from infinite ones. It is regarded as mathematically simple and elegant but the isolation of the physical divergency is hidden in its analytic continuation. By contrast, Abel-Plana formula method permits explicit separation of divergent terms. In regularizing the Casimir energy for a massless scalar field in a $D$-dimensional rectangular box, we give the rigorous proof of the equivalence of the two methods by deriving the reflection formula of Epstein zeta function from repeatedly application of Abel…
Applying the general framework for local zeta regularization proposed in Part I of this series of papers, we compute the renormalized vacuum expectation value of several observables (in particular, of the stress-energy tensor and of the total energy) for a massless scalar field confined within a rectangular box of arbitrary dimension.
The generation of photons in a three dimensional rectangular cavity with two moving boundaries is studied by using the Multiple Scale Analysis (MSA). It is shown that number of photons are enhanced for the cavity whose walls oscillate symmetrically with respect to the center of the cavity. The non-stationary Casimir effect is also discussed for the cavity which oscillates as a whole.
Nonlinear terms in the equations of motion can induce secularly growing loop corrections to correlation functions. Recently such corrections were shown to affect the particle production by a nonuniformly moving ideal mirror. We extend this conclusion to the cases of ideal vibrating cavity and single semitransparent mirror. These models provide natural IR and UV scales and allow a more accurate study of the loop behavior. In both cases we confirm that two-loop correction to the Keldysh propagator quadratically grows with time. This growth indicates a breakdown of the semiclassical approximation…
We consider the Casimir force acting on a $d$-dimensional rectangular piston due to massless scalar field with periodic, Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions and electromagnetic field with perfect electric conductor and perfect magnetic conductor boundary conditions. It is verified analytically that at any temperature, the Casimir force acting on the piston is always an attractive force pulling the piston towards the interior region, and the magnitude of the force gets larger as the separation $a$ gets smaller. Explicit exact expressions for the Casimir force for small and large plate sep…
In this paper we study the behavior of the Casimir energy of a "multi-cavity" across the transition from the metallic to the superconducting phase of the constituting plates. Our analysis is carried out in the framework of the ARCHIMEDES experiment, aiming at measuring the interaction of the electromagnetic vacuum energy with a gravitational field. For this purpose it is foreseen to modulate the Casimir energy of a layered structure composing a multi-cavity coupled system by inducing a transition from the metallic to the superconducting phase. This implies a thorough study of the behavior of t…
We reconsider the thermal scalar Casimir effect for $p$-dimensional rectangular cavity inside $D+1$-dimensional Minkowski space-time. We derive rigorously the regularization of the temperature-dependent part of the free energy by making use of the Abel-Plana formula repeatedly and get the explicit expression of the terms to be subtracted. In the cases of $D$=3, $p$=1 and $D$=3, $p$=3, we precisely recover the results of parallel plates and three-dimensional box in the literature. Furthermore, for $D>p$ and $D=p$ cases with periodic, Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions, we give the explic…
We study the zero and finite temperature Casimir force acting on a perfectly conducting piston with arbitrary cross section moving inside a closed cylinder with infinitely permeable walls. We show that at any temperature, the Casimir force always tends to move the piston away from the walls and towards its equilibrium position. In the case of rectangular piston, exact expressions for the Casimir force are derived. In the high temperature regime, we show that the leading term of the Casimir force is linear in temperature and therefore the Casimir force has a classical limit. Due to duality, all…
New results for scalar Casimir self-energies arising from interior modes are presented for the three integrable tetrahedral cavities. Since the eigenmodes are all known, the energies can be directly evaluated by mode summation, with a point-splitting regulator, which amounts to evaluation of the cylinder kernel. The correct Weyl divergences, depending on the volume, surface area, and the edges, are obtained, which is strong evidence that the counting of modes is correct. Because there is no curvature, the finite part of the quantum energy may be unambiguously extracted. Cubic, rectangular para…
We show through Schwinger's approach that in a static weak gravitational background, the Casimir Energy for a real massless scalar field obeying Dirichlet boundary conditions on rectangular plates is unaltered from it's flat space-time value. The result is obtained considering an rather general class of backgrounds, adding further generality and consistency test for the previous work. The proposed result has direct consequences on earlier works in the literature that found gravity related corrections for similar setups.
The Casimir effect for rectangular boxes has been studied for several decades. But there are still some points unclear. Recently, there are new developments related to this topic, including the demonstration of the equivalence of the regularization methods and the clarification of the ambiguity in the regularization of the temperature-dependent free energy. Also, the interesting quantum spring was raised stemming from the topological Casimir effect of the helix boundary conditions. We review these developments together with the general derivation of the Casimir energy of the $p$-dimensional ca…
We introduce a useful approach to find asymptotically explicit expressions for the Casimir free energy at large temperature. The resulting expressions contain the classical terms as well as the few first terms of the corresponding heat-kernel expansion, as expected. This technique works well for many familiar configurations in Euclidean as well as non-Euclidean spaces. By utilizing this approach, we provide some new numerically considerable results for the Casimir pressure in some rectangular ideal-metal cavities. For instance, we show that at sufficiently large temperature, the Casimir pressu…
Using the heat kernel method and the analytic continuation of the zeta function, we calculate the canonical and improved vacuum stress tensors, ${T_{μν}(\vec{x})}$ and ${Θ_{μν}(\vec{x})}$, associated with a massless scalar field confined in the interior of an infinitely long rectangular waveguide. The local depence of the renormalized energy for two special configurations when the total energy is positive and negative are presented using ${T_{00}(\vec{x})}$ and ${Θ_{00}(\vec{x})}$. From the stress tensors we obtain the local Casimir forces in all walls by introducing a particular external conf…
We consider Casimir force acting on a three dimensional rectangular piston due to a massive scalar field subject to periodic, Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions. Exponential cut-off method is used to derive the Casimir energy in the interior region and the exterior region separated by the piston. It is shown that the divergent term of the Casimir force acting on the piston due to the interior region cancels with that due to the exterior region, thus render a finite well-defined Casimir force acting on the piston. Explicit expressions for the total Casimir force acting on the piston is d…
We look at vacuum solutions for fields confined in cavities where the boundary conditions can rule out constant field configurations, other than the zero field. If the zero field is unstable, symmetry breaking can occur to a field configuration of lower energy which is not constant. The stability of the zero field is determined by the size of the length scales which characterize the cavity and parameters that enter the scalar field potential. There can be a critical length at which an instability of the zero field sets in. In addition to looking at the rectangular and spherical cavity in detai…
We evaluate the Casimir vacuum energy at finite temperature associated with the Maxwell field confined by a perfectly conducting rectangular cavity and show that an extended version of the temperature inversion symmetry is present in this system.
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 consider a Lorentz-breaking scalar field theory within the Horava-Lifshtz approach. We investigate the changes that a space-time anisotropy produces in the Casimir effect. A massless real quantum scalar field is considered in two distinct situations: between two parallel plates and inside a rectangular two-dimensional box. In both cases we have adopted specific boundary conditions on the field at the boundary. As we shall see, the energy and the Casimir force strongly depends on the parameter associated with the breaking of Lorentz symmetry and also on the boundary conditions.
New results for scalar Casimir self-energies arising from interior modes are presented for the three integrable tetrahedral cavities. Since the eigenmodes are all known, the energies can be directly evaluated by mode summation, with a point-splitting regulator, which amounts to evaluation of the cylinder kernel. The correct Weyl divergences, depending on the volume, surface area, and the corners, are obtained, which is strong evidence that the counting of modes is correct. Because there is no curvature, the finite part of the quantum energy may be unambiguously extracted. Dirichlet and Neumann…
New exact results are given for the interior Casimir energies of infinitely long waveguides of triangular cross section (equilateral, hemiequilateral, and isosceles right triangles). Results for cylinders of rectangular cross section are rederived. In particular, results are obtained for interior modes belonging to Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions (TM and TE modes). These results are expressed in rapidly convergent series using the Chowla-Selberg formula, and in fact may be given in closed form, except for general rectangles. The energies are finite because only the first three heat-k…
Recent work in the literature has studied rigid Casimir cavities in a weak gravitational field, or in de Sitter spacetime, or yet other spacetime models. The present review paper studies the difficult problem of direct evaluation of scalar Green functions for a Casimir-type apparatus in de Sitter spacetime. Working to first order in the small parameter of the problem, i.e. twice the gravity acceleration times the plates' separation divided by the speed of light in vacuum, suitable coordinates are considered for which the differential equations obeyed by the zeroth- and first-order Green functi…
Non-trivial $ϕ^{4}$-theory is studied in a renormalisation group invariant approach inside a box consisting of rectangular plates and where the scalar modes satisfy periodic boundary conditions at the plates. It is found that the Casimir energy exponentially approaches the infinite volume limit, the decay rate given by the scalar condensate. It therefore essentially differs from the power law of a free theory. This might provide experimental access to properties of the non-trivial vacuum. At small interplate distances the system can no longer tolerate a scalar condensate, and a first order pha…
We study the leading long-distance attractive force between two holes in a plate arising from a scalar field with Dirichlet boundary conditions on the plate. We use a formalism in which the interaction is governed by a non-local field theory which lives on the two holes. The interaction energy is proportional to Q_1 Q_2/r^7 at large separation r, where Q_1 and Q_2 are certain charges associated with the holes. We compute these charges for round and rectangular holes. We show that the 1/r^7 behavior is universal for separations large compared to the linear dimensions of the holes, irrespective …
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 inte…
We study the entanglement dynamics between two cavities when one of them is harmonically shaken in the context of quantum information theory. We find four different regimes depending on the frequency of the motion and the spectrum of the moving cavity. If the moving cavity is three dimensional only two modes inside get coupled and the entanglement can either degrade asymptotically with time or oscillate depending on the driving. On the other hand, if the cavity has an equidistant spectrum the entanglement can either vanish asymptotically if it is driven with its fundamental frequency or have a…
Quantum fluctuations of massless scalar fields represented by quantum fluctuations of the quasiparticle vacuum in a zero-temperature dilute Bose-Einstein condensate may well provide the first experimental arena for measuring the Casimir force of a field other than the electromagnetic field. This would constitute a real Casimir force measurement - due to quantum fluctuations - in contrast to thermal fluctuation effects. We develop a multidimensional cut-off technique for calculating the Casimir energy of massless scalar fields in $d$-dimensional rectangular spaces with $q$ large dimensions and …
A pedagogical introduction to the heat kernel technique, zeta function and Casimir effect is presented. Several applications are considered. First we derive the high temperature asymptotics of the free energy for boson fields in terms of the heat kernel expansion and zeta function. Another application is chiral anomaly for local (MIT bag) boundary conditions. Then we rederive the Casimir energies for perfectly conducting rectangular cavities using a new technique. The new results for the attractive Casimir force acting on each of the two perfectly conducting plates inside an infinite perfectly…
Parametric photon creation via the dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) is evaluated numerically, in a three-dimensional rectangular resonant cavity bisected by a semiconductor diaphragm (SD), which is irradiated by a pulsed laser with frequency of GHz order. The aim of this paper is to determine some of the optimum conditions required to detect DCE photons relevant to a novel experimental detection system. We expand upon the thin plasma sheet model [Crocce et al., Phys. Rev. A 70 033811 (2004)] to estimate the number of photons for both TE and TM modes at any given SD position. Numerical calculatio…
