Like Casimir's original force between conducting plates in vacuum, Casimir forces are usually attractive. But repulsive Casimir forces can be achieved in special circumstances. These might prove useful in nanotechnology. We give examples of when repulsive quantum vacuum forces can arise with conducting materials.
Using numerical analytic continuation, we compute the Zeta function for the Casimir Effect for circular geometries in 2+1 dimensions. After subtraction of the simple pole of the zeta function, essentially MS renormalization, we find the Casimir force is repulsive. Implications for the stability of 2+1 dimensional domain walls and Axion membranes in 3+1 dimensions are discussed, especially in the context of strongly coupled underlying physics.
In this paper the Casimir energy of two parallel plates made by materials of different penetration depth and no medium in between is derived. We study the Casimir force density and derive analytical constraints on the two penetration depths which are sufficient conditions to ensure repulsion. Compared to other methods our approach needs no specific model for dielectric or magnetic material properties and constitutes a complementary analysis.
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 repulsion between a metal and a dielectric suspended in a liquid has been thoroughly studied in recent experiments. In the present paper we consider surface modes in three layered systems modeled by dielectric functions guaranteeing repulsion. It is shown that surface modes play a decisive role in this phenomenon at short separations. For a toy plasma model we find the contribution of the surface modes at all distances.
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…
Casimir and Casimir-Polder repulsion have been known for more than 50 years. The general "Lifshitz" configuration of parallel semi-infinite dielectric slabs permits repulsion if they are separated by a dielectric fluid that has a value of permittivity that is intermediate between those of the dielectric slabs. This was indirectly confirmed in the 1970s, and more directly by Capasso's group recently. It has also been known for many years that electrically and magnetically polarizable bodies can experience a repulsive quantum vacuum force. More amenable to practical application are situations wh…
We present two novel models for repulsive Casimir interaction between positive perturbations. One example relies on non locality of the dielectric response and one relies on interference between (attractive) modes. Such examples are impossible to achieve in 1d massless theories, as they are prohibited by a generalization of the result of Lambrecht, Jaekel and Reynaud [Phys.Lett. A 225 (1997)] to non local dielectrics and to negative perturbations
We compute the Casimir energy between an unusual pair of parallel plates at finite temperature, namely, a perfectely conducting plate ($ε\to\infty$) and an infinitely permeable one ($μ\to\infty$) by applying the generalized zeta function method. We also compute the Casimir pressure and discuss the high and the low temperature limits.
We study the influence of stationary axisymmetric spacetimes on Casimir energy. We consider a massive scalar field and analyze its dependence on the apparatus orientation with respect to the dragging direction associated with such spaces. We show that, for an apparatus orientation not considered before in the literature, the Casimir energy can change its sign, producing a repulsive force. As applications, we analyze two specific metrics: one associated with a linear motion of a cylinder and a circular equatorial motion around a gravitational source described by Kerr geometry.
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,…
We investigate the Casimir-Polder force acting on a polarizable microparticle in the geometry of a straight cosmic string. In order to develop this analysis we evaluate the electromagnetic field Green tensor on the imaginary frequency axis. The expression for the Casimir-Polder force is derived in the general case of anisotropic polarizability. In dependence of the eigenvalues for the polarizability tensor and of the orientation of its principal axes, the Casimir-Polder force can be either repulsive or attractive. Moreover, there are situations where the force changes the sign with separation.…
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 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…
Mainly on nano-scale, but maybe not exclusively, it can be imagined a spontaneous charge disjunction inside certain media due to the fluctuations, collisions, wall effects, radiation or/and other presently unknown interactions. The repulsive Casimir-Lifshitz force may be also a good candidate as a source of this kind of phenomenon. To cover this assumption mathematically an additional term should appear in the Maxwell equations. As a consequence of this term, similar Klein-Gordon equations with a negative mass term will be obtained for the electric and magnetic fields. These equations may have…
The Casimir effect for parallel plates in the presence of compactified universal extra dimensions within the frame of Kaluza-Klein theory is analyzed. Having regularized and discussed the expressions of Casimir force in the limit, we show that the nature of Casimir force is repulsive if the distance between the plates is large enough and the higher-dimensional spacetime is, the greater the value of repulsive Casimir force between plates is. The repulsive nature of the force is not consistent with the experimental phenomena.
The infrared behavior of quantum field theories confined in bounded domains is strongly dependent on the shape and structure of space boundaries. The most significant physical effect arises in the behaviour of the vacuum energy. The Casimir energy can be attractive or repulsive depending on the nature of the boundary. We calculate the vacuum energy for a massless scalar field confined between two homogeneous parallel plates with the most general type of boundary conditions depending on four parameters. The analysis provides a powerful method to identify which boundary conditions generate attra…
I investigate the finite temperature Casimir effect for a charged and massless scalar field satisfying mixed (Dirichlet-Neumann) boundary conditions on a pair of plane parallel plates of infinite size. The effect of a uniform magnetic field, perpendicular to the plates, on the Helmholtz free energy and Casimir pressure is studied. The zeta-function regularization technique is used to obtain finite results. Simple analytic expressions are obtained for the zeta function and the free energy, in the limits of small plate distance, high temperature and strong magnetic field. The Casimir pressure is…
Electromagnetism in substance is characterized by permittivity (dielectric constant) and permeability (magnetic permeability). They describe the substance property {\it effectively}. We present a {\it geometric} approach to it. Some models are presented, where the two quantities are geometrically defined. Fluctuation due to the micro dynamics (such as dipole-dipole interaction) is taken into account by the (generalized) path-integral. Free energy formula (Lifshitz 1954), for the material composed of three regions with different permittivities, is explained. Casimir energy is obtained by a new …
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…
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.
We study the Casimir effect in axion electrodynamics. A finite $θ$-term affects the energy dispersion relation of photon if $θ$ is time and/or space dependent. We focus on a special case with linearly inhomogeneous $θ$ along the $z$-axis. Then we demonstrate that the Casimir force between two parallel plates perpendicular to the $z$-axis can be either attractive or repulsive, dependent on the gradient of $θ$. We call this repulsive component in the Casimir force induced by inhomogeneous $θ$ the anomalous Casimir effect.
We critically review the possibilities of a repulsive Casimir interaction between materials which carry Chern-Simons surface actions for the electromagnetic field.
We derive exact expressions for the Casimir scalar interaction energy between media-separated eccentric dielectric cylinders and for the media-separated cylinder-plane geometry using a mode-summation approach. Similarly to the electromagnetic Casimir-Lifshitz interaction energy between fluid-separated planar plates, the force between cylinders is attractive or repulsive depending on the relative values of the permittivities of the three intervening media.
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…
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.
In this work we consider a fermionic chain of finite length $\ell$. Fermions are allowed to interact and are forced to obey boundary conditions, thus altering the process of condensation. Our goal is to explore how this affects the quantum vacuum energy for this system. We approach this problem by using a self-consistent method and observe a nontrivial behavior in the Casimir force, displaying a switch from an attractive to a repulsive regime. This flip stems from the competition between the attractive contribution from the usual fermionic Casimir effect and a repulsive one coming from the con…
The electromagnetic vacuum energy is considered in the presence of a perfectly conducting plane and a ball with dielectric permittivity $\varepsilon$ and magnetic permeability $μ$, $μ\ne1$. The attention is focused on the Casimir repulsion in this system caused by magnetic permeability of the sphere. In the case of perfectly permeable sphere, $μ=\infty$, the vacuum energy is estimated numerically. The short and long distance asymptotes corresponding to the repulsive force and respective low temperature corrections and high temperature limits are found for a wide range of $μ$. The constraints o…
The Casimir energy, free energy and Casimir force are evaluated, at arbitrary finite temperature, for a dilute dielectric ball with uniform velocity of light inside the ball and in the surrounding medium. In particular, we investigate the classical limit at high temperature. The Casimir force found is repulsive, as in previous calculations.
We present boundary conditions for the electromagnetic fields on a δ-function plate, having both electric and magnetic properties, sandwiched between two magneto-electric semi-infinite half spaces. The optical properties for an isolated δ-function plate are shown to be independent of the longitudinal material properties of the plate. The Casimir-Polder energy between an isotropically polarizable atom and a magneto-electric δ-function plate is attractive for a purely electric δ-function plate, repulsive for a purely magnetic δ-function plate, and vanishes for the simultaneous perfect conductor …
It is well known since a long time that all lossy conductors at finite temperature display an electronic noise, the Johnson-Nyquist noise, arising from the thermal agitation of electric charges inside the conductor. The existence of this noise implies that two nearby discharged conductors at finite temperature should repel each other, as a result of the electrodynamic interaction between the Johnson-Nyquist currents in either conductor and the eddy currents they induce in the other. It is suggested that this force is at the origin of the recently discovered large repulsive correction to the th…
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.
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 the quantum vacuum energies induced by massive fluctuations of one real scalar field on a configuration of two partially transparent plates are analysed. The physical properties of the infinitely thin plates are characterized by two Dirac-$δ$ potentials. We find that an attractive/repulsive Casimir force arises between the plates when the weights of the $δ$'s have equal/different sign. If some of the plates absorbs fluctuations below some threshold of energy (the corresponding weight is negative) there is the need to set a minimum mass to the scalar field fluctuations to preserve…
We consider the finite temperature Casimir force acting on two parallel plates in a closed cylinder with the same cross section of arbitrary shape in the presence of extra dimensions. Dirichlet boundary conditions are imposed on one plate and fractional Neumann conditions with order between zero (Dirichlet) and one (Neumann) are imposed on the other plate. Formulas for the Casimir force show that it is always attractive for Dirichlet boundary conditions, and is always repulsive when the fractional order is larger than 1/2. For some fractional orders less than 1/2, the Casimir force can be eith…
We predict a repulsive Casimir-Polder-type dispersion interaction between a single neutron and a metal or dielectric surface. We consider a scenario where a single neutron is subject to an external magnetic field. Due to its intrinsic magnetic moment, the neutron then forms a magnetisable two-level system which can exchange virtual photons with a nearby surface. The resulting dispersion interaction between a purely magnetic object (neutron) and a purely electric one (surface) is found to be repulsive, in contrast to the typical attractive interaction between electric objects. Its magnitude is …
The finite temperature Casimir effect for a scalar field in the bulk region of the two Randall-Sundrum models, RSI and RSII, is studied. We calculate the Casimir energy and the Casimir force for two parallel plates with separation $a$ on the visible brane in the RSI model. High-temperature and low-temperature cases are covered. Attractiveness versus repulsiveness of the temperature correction to the force is discussed in the typical special cases of Dirichlet-Dirichlet, Neumann-Neumann, and Dirichlet-Neumann boundary conditions at low temperature. The Abel-Plana summation formula is made use o…
In this paper, the Casimir effect for parallel plates in the presence of one compactified universal extra dimension is reexamined in detail. Having regularized the expressions of Casimir force, we show that the nature of Casimir force is repulsive if the distance between the plates is large enough, which is disagree with the experimental phenomena.
Systems described by an O(n) symmetrical $ϕ^4$ Hamiltonian are considered in a $d$-dimensional film geometry at their bulk critical points. The critical Casimir forces between the film's boundary planes $\mathfrak{B}_j, j=1,2$, are investigated as functions of film thickness $L$ for generic symmetry-preserving boundary conditions $\partial_n\bmϕ=\mathring{c}_j\bmϕ$. The $L$-dependent part of the reduced excess free energy per cross-sectional area takes the scaling form $f_{\text{res}}\approx D(c_1L^{Φ/ν},c_2L^{Φ/ν})/L^{d-1}$ when $d<4$, where $c_i$ are scaling fields associated with the variab…
When one studies the Casimir effect, the periodic (anti-periodic) boundary condition is usually taken to mimic a periodic (anti-periodic) structure for a scalar field living in a flat space with a non-Euclidean topology. However, there could be an arbitrary phase difference between the value of the scalar field on one endpoint of the unit structure and that on the other endpoint, such as the structure of nanotubes. Then, in this paper, a periodic condition on the ends of the system with an additional phase factor, which is called the ``quasi-periodic" condition, is imposed to investigate the c…
We study the influence of a background uniform magnetic field and boundary conditions on the vacuum of a quantized charged massive scalar matter field confined between two parallel plates; the magnetic field is directed orthogonally to the plates. The admissible set of boundary conditions at the plates is determined by the requirements that the operator of one-particle energy squared be self-adjoint and positive definite. We show that, in the case of a weak magnetic field and a small separation of the plates, the Casimir force is either attractive or repulsive, depending on the choice of a bou…
We propose another method to compute the Casimir force in noncommutative Randall-Sundrum braneworld model considered by K. Nouicer and Y. Sabri recently. Our method can be used to compute the Casimir force to any order in the noncommutative parameter. Contrary to the claim made by K. Nouicer and Y. Sabri that repulsive Casimir force can appear in the first order approximation, we show that the Casimir force is always attractive at any order of approximation.
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 Casimir effect is investigated in cylindrical and toroidal carbon nanotubes within the framework of the Dirac-like model for the electronic states. The topological Casimir energy is positive for metallic cylindrical nanotubes and is negative for semiconducting ones. The toroidal compactification of a cylindrical nanotube along its axis increases the Casimir energy for metallic-type (periodic) boundary conditions along its axis and decreases the Casimir energy for the semiconducting-type compactifications. For finite length metallic nanotubes the Casimir forces acting on the tube edges are …
We want to study the Casimir effect for a single conducting microscopic cylindrical cavity. The mathematical technique is based on the Green function of the geometry of the inside of the cavity, and the integral regularization is based on the plasma frequency cutoff for real conductors. Using the symmetric electromagnetic energy-momentum tensor, in terms of four potential, the total Casimir energy for the inside of the Cavity is calculated. Neglecting the contribution of the external (outside of the cavity) Casimir energy based on the reason recently presented in [1], the forces experienced by…
The Casimir effect for {mass dimension one fermion fields (sometimes called Elko)} in $3+1$ dimension is obtained using Dirichlet boundary conditions. It is shown the existence of a repulsive force four times greater than the case of the scalar field. The precise reason for such differences are highlighted and interpreted, as well as the right parallel of the Casimir effect due to scalar and fermionic fields.
The Casimir effect for parallel plates within the frame of five-dimensional Randall-Sundrum model with two branes is reexamined. We argue that the nature of Casimir force is repulsive if the distance between the plates is not extremely tiny, which is not consistent with the experimental phenomena. We also point out that the estimation of the separation between the two branes, by means of Casimir effect for two-parallel-plate system, is not feasible, in contrast to another recent study.
The Casimir surface force density F on a dielectric dilute spherical ball of radius a, surrounded by a vacuum, is calculated at zero temperature. We treat (n-1) (n being the refractive index) as a small parameter. The dispersive properties of the material are taken into account by adopting a simple dispersion relation, involving a sharp high frequency cutoff at omega = omega_0. For a nondispersive medium there appears (after regularization) a finite, physical, force F^{nondisp} which is repulsive. By means of a uniform asymptotic expansion of the Riccati-Bessel functions we calculate F^{nondis…
We consider the Casimir interaction between (non-magnetic) dielectric bodies or conductors. Our main result is a proof that the Casimir force between two bodies related by reflection is always attractive, independent of the exact form of the bodies or dielectric properties. Apart from being a fundamental property of fields, the theorem and its corollaries also rule out a class of suggestions to obtain repulsive forces, such as the two hemisphere repulsion suggestion and its relatives.
We evaluate the one-loop correction to the spectrum of Kaluza-Klein system for the $ϕ^3$ model on $R^{1,d}\times (T_θ^2)^L$, where $1+d$ dimensions are the ordinary flat Minkowski spacetimes and the extra dimensions are the L two-dimensional noncommutative tori with noncommutativity $θ$. The correction to the Kaluza-Klein mass spectrum is then used to compute the Casimir energy. The results show that when $L>2$ the Casimir energy due to the noncommutativity could give repulsive force to stabilize the extra noncommutative tori in the cases of $d = 4n - 2$, with $n$ a positive integral.
We develop a mathematically precise framework for the Casimir effect. Our working hypothesis, verified in the case of parallel plates, is that only the regularization-independent Ramanujan sum of a given asymptotic series contributes to the Casimir pressure. As an illustration, we treat two cases: parallel plates, identifying a previous cutoff free version (by G. Scharf and W. W.) as a special case, and the sphere.We finally discuss the open problem of the Casimir force for the cube. We propose an Ansatz for the exterior force and argue why it may provide the exact solution, as well as an expl…
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 …
The Casimir force between two parallel plates in the Gödel universe is computed for a scalar field at finite temperature. It is observed that when the plates separation is comparable with the scale given by the rotation of the space-time, the force becomes repulsive and then approaches zero. Since it has been shown previously that the universe may experience a Godel phase for a small period of time, the induced inhomogeneities from the Casimir force are also studied.
In this paper, a massless scalar field coupled to gravity is considered. Then the Casimir effect at finite temperature is calculated. Such development is carried out in the Thermo Field Dynamics formalism. This approach presents a topological structure that allows for investigating the effects of temperature and the size effect in a similar way. These effects are calculated considering Gödel-type solutions as a gravitational background. The Stefan-Boltzmann law and its consistency are analyzed for both causal and non-causal Gödel-type regions. In this space-time and for any region, the Casimir…
We apply the background field method and the effective action formalism to describe the four-dimensional dynamical Casimir effect. Our picture corresponds to the consideration of quantum cosmology for an expanding FRW universe (the boundary conditions act as a moving mirror) filled by a quantum massless GUT which is conformally invariant. We consider cases in which the static Casimir energy is repulsive and attractive. Inserting the simplest possible inertial term, we find, in the adiabatic (and semiclassical) approximation, the dynamical evolution of the scale factor and the dynamical Casimir…
We consider the Casimir effect for quantized massive scalar field with non-conformal coupling $ξ$ in a spacetime of wormhole whose throat is rounded by a spherical shell. In the framework of zeta-regularization approach we calculate a zero point energy of scalar field. We found that depending on values of coupling $ξ$, a mass of field $m$, and/or the throat's radius $a$ the Casimir force may be both attractive and repulsive, and even equals to zero.