We consider the thermal Casimir effect in systems of parallel plates coupled to a mass-less free field theory via quadratic interaction terms which suppress (i) the field on the plates (ii) the gradient of the field in the plane of the plates. These boundary interactions correspond to (i) the presence of an electrolyte in the plates and (ii) a uniform field of dipoles, in the plates, which are polarizable in the plane of the plates. These boundary interactions lead to Robin type boundary conditions in the case where there is no field outside the two plates. In the appropriate limit, in both cases Dirichlet boundary conditions are obtained but we show that in case (i) the Dirichlet limit breaks down at short inter-plate distances and in (ii) it breaks down at large distances. The behavior of the two plate system is also seen to be highly dependent on whether the system is open or closed. In addition we analyze the Casimir force on a third plate placed between two outer plates. The force acting on the central plate is shown to be highly sensitive to whether or not the fluctuating scalar field is present in the region exterior to the two confining plates.
Landau-Ginzburg $ϕ^4$ field theory is usually applied to systems for understanding continuous phase transitions at critical points. Here we analyze the thermal field using a similar free energy description from a statistical field theory perspective, and study fluctuations in such a field with a particular focus on realizing the thermal Casimir effect. Initially, we qualitatively describe the emergence of the Casimir-like effect using mean-field approximation and further derive it using coarse-graining of perturbative renormalization procedure in the vicinity of Gaussian-fixed point. These res…
In this paper we study the system of a scalar quantum field confined between two plane, isotropic, and homogeneous parallel plates at thermal equilibrium. We represent the plates by the most general lossless and frequency-independent boundary conditions that satisfy the conditions of isotropy and homogeneity and are compatible with the unitarity of the quantum field theory. Under these conditions we compute the thermal correction to the quantum vacuum energy as a function of the temperature and the parameters encoding the boundary condition. The latter enables us to obtain similar results for …
We examine the Casimir effect for free statistical field theories which have Hamiltonians with second order derivative terms. Examples of such Hamiltonians arise from models of non-local electrostatics, membranes with non-zero bending rigidities and field theories of the Brazovskii type that arise for polymer systems. The presence of a second derivative term means that new types of boundary conditions can be imposed, leading to a richer phenomenology of interaction phenomena. In addition zero modes can be generated that are not present in standard first derivative models, and it is these zero …
Comment on "Temperature dependence of the Casimir force for lossy bulk media"
最近，Yampol'skii等人[Phys. Rev. A v.82，032511（2010）]主张，当对卡西米尔力进行热校正的波动电磁场的特征波长大于金属测试体的尺寸时，Lifshitz理论不适用。有人声称，这是在实验中的情况下，排除了与德鲁德模型相结合的Lifshitz理论。我们计算的倏逝波的热校正的主要贡献的波长，我们发现，它们是远远小于测试机构的大小。作者所得到的相反结论是由于混淆了传播波和倏逝波。
Random (disordered) components in the surface anchoring of the smectic-A liquid crystalline film in general modify the thermal pseudo-Casimir interaction. Anchoring disorder of the quenched type is in general decoupled from the thermal pseudo-Casimir force and gives rise to an additional disorder-generated interaction, in distinction to the annealed disorder, whose effect on the pseudo-Casimir force is non-additive. We consider the effects of the surface anchoring disorder by assuming that one of the substrates of the film is contaminated by a disorder source, resulting in a Gaussian-weighted …
