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 is added, divergences arise which render the model suspect. The analysis, however, is relatively straightforward and involves the Barnes zeta function. The extension to finite temperatures is made and it is shown that for the 3,7,... series of odd spheres, the repulsion by the walls continues but that, above a certain temperature, the free energy acquires two minima symmetrically placed about the mid point.
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.
The Casimir effect giving rise to an attractive or repulsive force between the configuration boundaries that confine the massless scalar field is reexamined for one to three-dimensional pistons in this paper. Especially, we consider Casimir pistons with hybrid boundary conditions, where the boundary condition on the piston is Neumann and those on other surfaces are Dirichlet. We show that the Casimir force on the piston is always repulsive, in contrast with the same problem where the boundary conditions are Dirichlet on all surfaces.
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.
In this paper, the finite temperature Casimir force acting on a two-dimensional Casimir piston due to electromagnetic field is computed. It was found that if mixed boundary conditions are assumed on the piston and its opposite wall, then the Casimir force always tends to restore the piston towards the equilibrium position, regardless of the boundary conditions assumed on the walls transverse to the piston. In contrary, if pure boundary conditions are assumed on the piston and the opposite wall, then the Casimir force always tend to pull the piston towards the closer wall and away from the equi…
This work focuses on the analysis of the Casimir effect for pistons subject to transmittal boundary conditions. In particular we consider, as piston configuration, a direct product manifold of the type $I\times N$ where $I$ is a closed interval of the real line and $N$ is a smooth compact Riemannian manifold. By utilizing the spectral zeta function regularization technique, we compute the Casimir energy of the system and the Casimir force acting on the piston. Explicit results for the force are provided when the manifold $N$ is a $d$-dimensional ball.
In this paper we study the Casimir force for a piston configuration in $R^3$ with one dimension being slightly curved and the other two infinite. We work for two different cases with this setup. In the first, the piston is "free to move" along a transverse dimension to the curved one and in the other case the piston "moves" along the curved one. We find that the Casimir force has opposite signs in the two cases. We also use a semi-analytic method to study the Casimir energy and force. In addition we discuss some topics for the aforementioned piston configuration in $R^3$ and for possible modif…
In this article, we derive the formula for the Casimir force acting on a piston made of real material moving inside a perfectly conducting rectangular box. It is shown that by taking suitable limits, one recovers the formula for the Casimir force acting on a perfectly conducting piston or an infinitely permeable piston. Lifshitz formula for finite temperature Casimir force acting on parallel plates made of real materials is re-derived by considering the five-layer model in the context of piston approach. It is observed that the divergences of the Casimir force will only cancel under certain co…
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 …
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…
The Casimir force on two-dimensional pistons for massive scalar fields with both Dirichlet and hybrid boundary conditions is computed. The physical result is obtained by making use of generalized $ζ$-function regularization technique. The influence of the mass and the position of the piston in the force is studied graphically. The Casimir force for massive scalar field is compared to that for massless scalar field.
A one-dimensional Casimir piston for massless scalar fields obeying Dirichlet boundary conditions in high-dimensional spacetimes within the frame of Kaluza-Klein theory is analyzed. We derive and calculate the exact expression for the Casimir force on the piston. We also compute the Casimir force in the limit that one outer plate is moved to the extremely distant place to show that the reduced force is associated with the properties of additional spatial dimensions. The more dimensionality the spacetime has, the stronger the extra-dimension influence is. The Casimir force for the piston in the…
In this paper we compute the Casimir energy and force for massless scalar fields endowed with hybrid boundary conditions, in the setting of the bounded generalized cone. By using spectral zeta function regularization methods, we obtain explicit expressions for the Casimir energy and force in arbitrary dimensions in terms of the zeta function defined on the piston. Our general formulas are, subsequently, specialized to the case in which the piston is modelled by a $d$-dimensional sphere. In this particular situation, explicit results are given for $d=2,3,4,5$.
In this paper we utilize $ζ$-function regularization techniques in order to compute the Casimir force for massless scalar fields subject to Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions in the setting of the conical piston. The piston geometry is obtained by dividing the bounded generalized cone into two regions separated by its cross section positioned at $a$ with $a\in(0,b)$ with $b>0$. We obtain expressions for the Casimir force that are valid in any dimension for both Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions in terms of the spectral $ζ$-function of the piston. As a particular case, we specify…
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…
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…
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 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…
In this article we consider the Casimir energy and force of massless Majorana fermions and vector bosons between parallel plates. The vector bosons satisfy perfect electric conductor boundary conditions while the Majorana fermions satisfy bag and chiral boundary conditions. We consider various piston configurations containing one vector boson and one fermion. We present a new regularization mechanism the piston offers. In our case regularization occurs explicitly at the Casimir energy density and not at the Casimir force level, as in usual pistons. We make use of boundary broken supersymmetry …
We offer a clarification of the significance of the indicated paper of H. Cheng. Cheng's conclusions about the attractive nature of Casimir forces between parallel plates are valid beyond the particular model in which he derived them; they are likely to be relevant to other recent literature on the effects of hidden dimensions on Casimir forces.
The Casimir effect of a piston for massless scalar fields which satisfy Dirichlet boundary conditions in the context of five-dimensional Randall-Sundrum models is studied. In these scenarios we derive and calculate the expression for the Casimir force on the piston. We also discuss the Casimir force in the limit that one outer plate is moved to the remote place to show that the nature of the reduced force between the parallel plates left. In the Randall-Sundrum model involving two branes the two plates attract each other when they locate very close, but the reduced Casimir force turns to be re…
In this work we analyze the Casimir energy and force for a {\it thick} piston configuration. This study is performed by utilizing the spectral zeta function regularization method. The results we obtain for the Casimir energy and force depend explicitly on the parameters that describe the general self-adjoint boundary conditions imposed. Numerical results for the Casimir force are provided for specific types of boundary conditions and are also compared to the corresponding force on an infinitely thin piston.
The Casimir effect for a three-parallel-plate system at finite temperature within the frame of five-dimensional Randall-Sundrum models is studied. In the case of Randall-Sundrum model involving two branes we find that the Casimir force depends on the plates distance and temperature after one outer plate has been moved to the distant place. Further we discover that the sign of the reduced force is negative as the plate and piston locate very close, but the reduced force nature becomes repulsive when the plates distance is not very tiny and finally the repulsive force vanishes with extremely lar…
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 consider the Casimir effect of the electromagnetic field in a higher dimensional spacetime of the form $M\times \mathcal{N}$, where $M$ is the 4-dimensional Minkowski spacetime and $\mathcal{N}$ is an $n$-dimensional compact manifold. The Casimir force acting on a planar piston that can move freely inside a closed cylinder with the same cross section is investigated. Different combinations of perfectly conducting boundary conditions and infinitely permeable boundary conditions are imposed on the cylinder and the piston. It is verified that if the piston and the cylinder have the same bounda…
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…
In this work the Casimir effect is studied for scalar fields in the presence of boundaries and under the influence of arbitrary smooth potentials of compact support. In this setting, piston configurations are analyzed in which the piston is modeled by a potential. For these configurations, analytic results for the Casimir energy and force are obtained by employing the zeta function regularization method. Also, explicit numerical results for the Casimir force are provided for pistons modeled by a class of compactly supported potentials that are realizable as delta-sequences. These results are t…
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…
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 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.
In this work we analyze the Casimir energy and force for a scalar field endowed with general self-adjoint boundary conditions propagating in a higher dimensional piston configuration. The piston is constructed as a direct product $I\times N$, with $I=[0,L]\subset\mathbb{R}$ and $N$ a smooth, compact Riemannian manifold with or without boundary. The study of the Casimir energy and force for this configuration is performed by employing the spectral zeta function regularization technique. The obtained analytic results depend explicitly on the spectral zeta function associated with the manifold $N…
In this paper we study the Casimir energy and force for generalized pistons constructed from warped product manifolds of the type $I\times_{f}N$ where $I=[a,b]$ is an interval of the real line and $N$ is a smooth compact Riemannian manifold either with or without boundary. The piston geometry is obtained by dividing the warped product manifold into two regions separated by the cross section positioned at $R\in(a,b)$. By exploiting zeta function regularization techniques we provide formulas for the Casimir energy and force involving the arbitrary warping function $f$ and base manifold $N$.
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 consider the influence of extra dimensions on the force in Casimir pistons. Suitable analytical expressions are provided for the Casimir force in the range where the plate distance is small, and that where it is large, compared to the size of the extra dimensions. We show that the Casimir force tends to move the center plate toward the closer wall; this result is true independently of the cross-section of the piston and the geometry or topology of the additional Kaluza--Klein dimensions. The statement also remains true at finite temperature. In the limit where one wall of the piston is move…
We calculate the scalar Casimir energy and Casimir force for a $R^3\times N$ Kaluza-Klein piston setup in which the extra dimensional space $N$ contains a non-commutative 2-sphere, $S_{FZ}$. The cases to be studied are $T^d\times S_{FZ}$ and $S_{FZ}$ respectively as extra dimensional spaces, with $T^d$ the $d$ dimensional commutative torus. The validity of the results and the regularization that the piston setup offers are examined in both cases. Finally we examine the 1-loop corrected Casimir energy for one piston chamber, due to the self interacting scalar field in the non-commutative geomet…
In this article we consider a piston modelled by a potential in the presence of extra dimensions. We analyze the functional determinant and the Casimir effect for this configuration. In order to compute the determinant and Casimir force we employ the zeta function scheme. Essentially, the computation reduces to the analysis of the zeta function associated with a scalar field living on an interval $[0,L]$ in a background potential. Although, as a model for a piston, it seems reasonable to assume a potential having compact support within $[0,L]$, we provide a formalism that can be applied to any…
We study the Casimir effect for parallel plates with massless Majorana fermions obeying the bag boundary conditions at finite temperature. The thermal influence will modify the effect. It is found that the sign of the Casimir energy keeps negative if the product of plate distance and the temperature is larger than a special value or the energy will change to be positive. The Casimir energy rises with the stronger thermal influence. We show that the attractive Casimir force between two parallel plates becomes greater with the increasing temperature. In the case of piston system involving the sa…
The Casimir effect for spherical geometry is calculated using generalized Thermofield Dynamics for the case of scalar field. Casimir force and Casimir pressure are presented. It is found that for high temperatures the Casimir force does change sign.
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.
The leading semiclassical estimates of the electromagnetic Casimir stresses on a spherical and a cylindrical metallic shell are within 1% of the field theoretical values. The electromagnetic Casimir energy for both geometries is given by two decoupled massless scalars that satisfy conformally covariant boundary conditions. Surface contributions vanish for smooth metallic boundaries and the finite electromagnetic Casimir energy in leading semiclassical approximation is due to quadratic fluctuations about periodic rays in the interior of the cavity only. Semiclassically the non-vanishing Casimir…
We revisit the calculation of vacuum energy density in compact spacetimes. For the general case of $k$ compact spatial dimensions in $p+k$ dimensional Minkowski spacetime, we calculate the Casimir force on a piston placed in the presence of external electromagnetic fields. We observe that while the presence of a strong external magnetic field reduces the intensity of the Casimir force, the presence of an electric field enhances it instead. We discuss various physical cases, and also derive the particle production rate in the presence of such external fields in compact spacetimes. We observe th…
We compute the Casimir Energy of a spherical region using a Surface Impedance approach. We characterize the Surface Impedance of the boundary using plasma model. Exact analytical formulae are obtained by means of the zeta function regularization method and all the divergencies are explicitly computed. We find that it is possible to have negative Casimir energy for some range of values of the relevant parameter. Limits of applicability of the model are discussed.
In this letter, we derive the explicit exact formulas for the finite temperature Casimir force acting on a pair of parallel plates in the presence of extra compactified dimensions within the framework of Kaluza-Klein theory. Using the piston analysis, we show that at any temperature, the Casimir force is always attractive and the effect of extra dimensions becomes stronger when the size or number of the extra dimensions increases. These properties are not affected by the explicit geometry and topology of the Kaluza-Klein space.
We compute the finite temperature Casimir energy for massive scalar field with general curvature coupling subject to Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions on the walls of a closed cylinder with arbitrary cross section, located in a background spacetime of the form $M^{d_1+1}\times \mathcal{N}^n$, where $M^{d_1+1}$ is the $(d_1+1)$-dimensional Minkowski spacetime and $\mathcal{N}^n$ is an $n$-dimensional internal manifold. The Casimir energy is regularized using the criteria that it should vanish in the infinite mass limit. The Casimir force acting on a piston moving freely inside the closed…
The Casimir interaction energy due to the vacuum fluctuations of a massive vector field between two perfectly conducting concentric spherical bodies is computed. The TE contribution to the Casimir interaction energy is a direct generalization of the massless case but the TM contribution is much more complicated. Each TM mode is a linear combination of a transverse mode which is the generalization of a TM mode in the massless case and a longitudinal mode that does not appear in the massless case. In contrast to the case of two parallel perfectly conducting plates, the are no TM discrete modes t…
Based on calculations involving an idealized boundary condition, it has long been assumed that the stress on a spherical conducting shell is repulsive. We use the more realistic case of a Drude dielectric to show that the stress is attractive, matching the generic behavior of Casimir forces in electromagnetism. We trace the discrepancy between these two cases to interactions between the electromagnetic quantum fluctuations and the dielectric material.
The Casimir energy for a conducting spherical shell of radius $a$ is computed using a direct mode summation approach. An essential ingredient is the implementation of a recently proposed method based on Cauchy's theorem for an evaluation of the eigenfrequencies of the system. It is shown, however, that this earlier calculation uses an improper set of modes to describe the waves exterior to the sphere. Upon making the necessary corrections and taking care to ensure that no mathematically ill-defined expressions occur, the technique is shown to leave numerical results unaltered while avoiding a …
Calculations of the Casimir energy for spherical geometries which are based on integrations of the stress tensor are critically examined. It is shown that despite their apparent agreement with numerical results obtained from mode summation methods, they contain a number of serious errors. Specifically, these include (1) an improper application of the stress tensor to spherical boundaries, (2) the neglect of pole terms in contour integrations, and (3) the imposition of inappropriate boundary conditions upon the relevant propagators. A calculation which is based on the stress tensor and which av…
In this paper we continue our program of computing Casimir self-entropies of idealized electrical bodies. Here we consider an electromagnetic $δ$-function sphere ("semitransparent sphere") whose electric susceptibility has a transverse polarization with arbitrary strength. Dispersion is incorporated by a plasma-like model. In the strong coupling limit, a perfectly conducting spherical shell is realized. We compute the entropy for both low and high temperatures. The TE self-entropy is negative as expected, but the TM self-entropy requires ultraviolet and infrared subtractions, and, surprisingly…
We give an exact series expansion of the Casimir force between plane and spherical metallic surfaces in the non trivial situation where the sphere radius $R$, the plane-sphere distance $L$ and the plasma wavelength $λ_¶$ have arbitrary relative values. We then present numerical evaluation of this expansion for not too small values of $L/R$. For metallic nanospheres where $R, L$ and $λ_¶$ have comparable values, we interpret our results in terms of a correlation between the effects of geometry beyond the proximity force approximation (PFA) and of finite reflectivity due to material properties. …
In the final few years of his life, Julian Schwinger proposed that the ``dynamical Casimir effect'' might provide the driving force behind the puzzling phenomenon of sonoluminescence. Motivated by that exciting suggestion, I have computed the static Casimir energy of a spherical cavity in an otherwise uniform material with dielectric constant $ε$ and permeability $μ$. As expected the result is divergent; yet a plausible finite answer is extracted, in the leading uniform asymptotic approximation. That result gives far too small an energy to account for the large burst of photons seen in sonolum…
It is shown that recent criticism by C. R. Hagen (hep-th/9902057) questioning the validity of stress tensor treatments of the Casimir energy for space divided into two parts by a spherical boundary is without foundation.
In this article, we consider the finite temperature Casimir effect in Kaluza-Klein spacetime due the the vacuum fluctuation of massless scalar field with Dirichlet boundary conditions. We consider the general case where the extra dimensions (internal space) can be any compact connected manifold or orbifold without boundaries. Using piston analysis, we show that the Casimir force is always attractive at any temperature, regardless of the geometry of the internal space. Moreover, the magnitude of the Casimir force increases as the size of the internal space increases and it reduces to the Casimi…
In this article, we study the finite temperature Casimir effect for scalar field with Robin boundary conditions on two parallel plates in a background spacetime that has a compact internal manifold with arbitrary geometry. The finite temperature Casimir force acting on the plates is derived using the piston approach, with which we show that the divergences of the Casimir forces from the region between the plates and the region outside the plates cancel each other. The nature and asymptotic behaviors of the Casimir force at different limits such as small and large plate separation, low and high…
In this paper we reconsider the formulation for the computation of the Casimir energy in spherically symmetric background potentials. Compared to the previous analysis, the technicalities are much easier to handle and final answers are surprisingly simple.
It has been recognized for some time that even for perfect conductors, the interaction Casimir entropy, due to quantum/thermal fluctuations, can be negative. This result was not considered problematic because it was thought that the self-entropies of the bodies would cancel this negative interaction entropy, yielding a total entropy that was positive. In fact, this cancellation seems not to occur. The positive self-entropy of a perfectly conducting sphere does indeed just cancel the negative interaction entropy of a system consisting of a perfectly conducting sphere and plate, but a model with…
The local Casimir energy density for a massless scalar field associated with step-function potentials in a 3+1 dimensional spherical geometry is considered. The potential is chosen to be zero except in a shell of thickness $δ$, where it has height $h$, with the constraint $hδ=1$. In the limit of zero thickness, an ideal $δ$-function shell is recovered. The behavior of the energy density as the surface of the shell is approached is studied in both the strong and weak coupling regimes. The former case corresponds to the well-known Dirichlet shell limit. New results, which shed light on the natur…
The Casimir Energy of a spherical surface characterized by its surface impedance is calculated. The material properties of the boundary are described by means of the Drude model, so that a generalization of previous results is obtained. The limits of the proposed approach are analyzed and a solution is suggested. The possibility of modulating the sign of the Casimir force from positive (repulsion) to negative (attraction) is studied.
