We investigate the Casimir effect in the context of a nontrivial topology by means of a generalized Matsubara formalism. This is performed in the context of a scalar field in $D$ Euclidean spatial dimensions with $d$ compactified dimensions. The procedure gives us the advantage of considering simultaneously spatial constraints and thermal effects. In this sense, the Casimir pressure in a heated system between two infinite planes is obtained and the results are compared with those found in the literature.
We reply to the "Comment on 'The Lifshitz-Matsubara sum formula for the Casimir pressure between magnetic metallic mirrors'" [arXiv:1604.06432]. We believe the comment misrepresents our papers, and fails to provide a plausible resolution to the conflict between theory and experiment.
We examine the conditions of validity for the Lifshitz-Matsubara sum formula for the Casimir pressure between magnetic metallic plane mirrors. As in the previously studied case of non-magnetic materials (Guerout et al, Phys. Rev. E 90 042125), we recover the usual expression for the lossy model of optical response, but not for the lossless plasma model. We also show that the modes associated with the Foucault currents play a crucial role in the limit of vanishing losses, in contrast to expectations.
We carefully re-examine the conditions of validity for the consistent derivation of the Lifshitz-Matsubara sum formula for the Casimir pressure between metallic plane mirrors. We recover the usual expression for the lossy Drude model, but not for the lossless plasma model. We give an interpretation of this new result in terms of the modes associated with the Foucault currents which play a role in the limit of vanishing losses, in contrast to common expectations.
Recently Guerout et al. [Phys. Rev. E, v.93, 022108 (2016)] advocated that the lossless plasma model has to be redefined as the limit of the Drude model when the relaxation parameter goes to zero. It was claimed that the previously used plasma model cannot correctly describe the Casimir pressure between two plates made of both nonmagnetic and magnetic metals and has to be replaced with the redefined one. We show that the suggested redefinition does not satisfy necessary physical requirements imposed on the dielectric permittivity. We also present a plausible explanation to the fact that the lo…
We derive the low-temperature behavior of the Casimir-Polder free energy for a polarizable atom interacting with graphene sheet which possesses the nonzero energy gap $Δ$ and chemical potential $μ$. The response of graphene to the electromagnetic field is described by means of the polarization tensor in the framework of Dirac model on the basis of first principles of thermal quantum field theory in the Matsubara formulation. It is shown that the thermal correction to the Casimir-Polder energy consists of three contributions. The first of them is determined by the Matsubara summation using the …
The analytic asymptotic expressions for the Casimir free energy and entropy for two parallel graphene sheets possessing nonzero energy gap $Δ$ and chemical potential $μ$ are derived at arbitrarily low temperature. Graphene is described in the framework of thermal quantum field theory in the Matsubara formulation by means of the polarization tensor in (2+1)-dimensional space-time. Different asymptotic expressions are found under the conditions $Δ>2μ$, $Δ=2μ$, and $Δ<2μ$ taking into account both the implicit temperature dependence due to a summation over the Matsubara frequencies and the explici…
The thermal Casimir effect in ideal metal rectangular boxes is considered using the method of zeta functional regularization. The renormalization procedure is suggested which provides the finite expression for the Casimir free energy in any restricted quantization volume. This expression satisfies the classical limit at high temperature and leads to zero thermal Casimir force for systems with infinite characteristic dimensions. In the case of two parallel ideal metal planes the results, as derived previously using thermal quantum field theory in Matsubara formulation and other methods, are rep…
Using the recently derived representation for the polarization tensor in (2+1)-dimensional space-time allowing an analytic continuation to the entire plane of complex frequencies, we obtain simple analytic expressions for the reflection coefficients of graphene at nonzero Matsubara frequencies. In the framework of the Lifshitz theory, these coefficients are shown to lead to nearly exact results for the Casimir free energy and pressure between two graphene sheets. The constituent parts of large thermal effect, arising in the Casimir interaction at short separations due to an explicit parametric…
We propose a new Monte-Carlo method for calculation of the Casimir forces. Our method is based on the formalism of noncompact lattice quantum electrodynamics. This approach has been tested in the simplest case of two ideal conducting planes. After this the method has been applied to the calculation of the lateral Casimir forces between two ideal conducting rectangular gratings. We compare our calculations with the results of PFA and "Optimal" PFA methods.
We develop a spectral representation formalism to calculate the Casimir force in the non-retarded limit, between a spherical particle and a substrate, both with arbitrary local dielectric properties. This spectral formalism allows one to do a systematic study of the force as a function of the geometrical variables separately from the dielectric properties. We found that the force does not follow a simple power-law as a function of the separation between the sphere and substrate. As a consequence, the non-retarded Casimir force is enhanced by several orders of magnitude as the sphere approaches…
We develop a formalism to calculate the fluctuation-induced interactions in periodic systems. The formalism, which combines the scattering theory with the C method borrowed from electromagnetic gratings studies, is suitable and efficient for the calculation of the Casimir forces involving surface relief gratings. We apply the developed technique to obtain the energy and lateral force for simple 1-D sinusoidal gratings. Using this formalism we derived known asymptotic expressions that were previously obtained through perturbative approximations. At close separation, our numerical results match …
We review the relation between Casimir effect and geometry, emphasizing deviations from the commonly used Proximity Force Approximation (PFA). We use to this aim the scattering formalism which is nowadays the best tool available for accurate and reliable theory-experiment comparisons. We first recall the main lines of this formalism when the mirrors can be considered to obey specular reflection. We then discuss the more general case where non planar mirrors give rise to non-specular reflection with wavevectors and field polarisations mixed. The general formalism has already been fruitfully use…
Transmission-line waveguides can mediate long-range fluctuation-induced forces between neutral objects. We present two approaches for the description of these forces between electric components embedded in transmission-line circuits. The first, following ordinary quantum electrodynamics (QED), consists of the quantization and scattering theory of voltage and current waves inside transmission lines. The second approach relies on a simple circuit analysis with additional noisy current sources due to resistors in the circuit, as per the fluctuation-dissipation theorem (FDT). We apply the latter a…
Finite temperature Casimir theory of the Dirichlet scalar field is developed, assuming that there is a conventional Casimir setup in physical space with two infinitely large plates separated by a gap R and in addition an arbitrary number q of extra compacified dimensions. As a generalization of earlier theory, we assume in the first part of the paper that there is a scalar 'refractive index' N filling the whole of the physical space region. After presenting general expressions for free energy and Casimir forces we focus on the low temperature case, as this is of main physical interest both for…
We review the theory of the Casimir effect using scattering techniques. After years of theoretical efforts, this formalism is now largely mastered so that the accuracy of theory-experiment comparisons is determined by the level of precision and pertinence of the description of experimental conditions. Due to an imperfect knowledge of the optical properties of real mirrors used in the experiment, the effect of imperfect reflection remains a source of uncertainty in theory-experiment comparisons. For the same reason, the temperature dependence of the Casimir force between dissipative mirrors rem…
We use the density matrix formalism in order to calculate the energy level shifts, in second order on interaction, of an atom in the presence of a perfectly conducting wall in the dipole approximation. The thermal corrections are also examined when $\hbar ω_0/k_B T = k_0 λ_T \gg 1$, where ${$ω_0=k_0 c$}$ is the dominant transition frequency of the atom and $λ_T$ is the thermal length. When the distance $z$ between the atom and the wall is larger than $λ_T$ we find the well known result obtained from Lifshitz's formula, whose leading term is proportional to temperature and is independent of $c$…
In this article we investigate the Casimir effect in the presence of a medium by quantizing the Electromagnetic (EM) field in the presence of a magnetodielectric medium by using the path integral formalism. For a given medium with definite electric and magnetic susceptibilities, explicit expressions for the Casimir force are obtained which are in agree with the original Casimir force between two conducting parallel plates immersed in the quantum electromagnetic vacuum.
Casimir effect in the planar setting is described using the boundary state formalism, for general partially reflecting boundaries. It is expressed in terms of the low-energy degrees of freedom, which provides a large distance expansion valid for general interacting field theories provided there is a non-vanishing mass gap. The expansion is written in terms of the scattering amplitudes, and needs no ultraviolet renormalization. We also discuss the case when the quantum field has a nontrivial vacuum configuration.
We develop a formalism for the calculation of the flow of angular momentum carried by the fluctuating electromagnetic field within a cavity bounded by two flat anisotropic materials. By generalizing a procedure employed recently for the calculation of the Casimir force between arbitrary materials, we obtain an expression for the torque between anisotropic plates in terms of their reflection amplitude matrices. We evaluate the torque in 1D for ideal and realistic model materials.
The dynamical Casimir effect for a massless scalar field in 1+1-dimensions is studied numerically by solving a system of coupled first-order differential equations. The number of scalar particles created from vacuum is given by the solutions to this system which can be found by means of standard numerics. The formalism already used in a former work is derived in detail and is applied to resonant as well as off-resonant cavity oscillations.
We study the creation of photons in resonant cylindrical cavities with time dependent length. The physical degrees of freedom of the electromagnetic field are described using Hertz potentials. We describe the general formalism for cavities with arbitrary section. Then we compute explicitly the number of TE and TM motion-induced photons for cylindrical cavities with rectangular and circular sections. We also discuss the creation of TEM photons in non-simply connected cylindrical cavities.
The effect of edges and apertures on the Casimir energy of an arrangement of plates and boundaries can be calculated in terms of an effective nonlocal lower-dimensional field theory that lives on the boundary. This formalism has been developed in a number of previous papers and applied to specific examples with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Here we generalize the formalism to arbitrary boundary conditions. As a specific example, the geometry of a flat plate and a half-plate placed parallel to it is considered for a number of different boundary conditions and the area-dependent and edge depend…
Imaginary Time Formalism for Causal Nonlinear Response Functions
Department of Physics, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校物理系）；Anthony J. Leggett Institute for Condensed Matter Theory, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign（伊利诺伊大学厄巴纳-香槟分校安东尼·J·莱格特凝聚态理论研究所）
The frequency spectrum of the Casimir force between two plates separated by vacuum as it appears in the Lifshitz formalism is reexamined and generalised as compared to previous works to allow for imperfectly reflecting plates. As previously reported by Ford [Phys. Rev. A \textbf{48} (1993) 2962], the highly oscillatory nature of the frequency dependence of the Casimir force points to possibilities for very large and indeed negative Casimir forces if the frequency-dependent dielectric response, $ε(ω)$, of the materials could be tuned. A paradox occurs, however, because an alternative calculatio…
The energy momentum tensor is used to introduce the Casimir force of the massive scalar field acting on a nonpenetrating surface. This expression can be used to evaluate the vacuum force by employing the appropriate field operators. To simplify our formalism we also relates the vacuum force expression to the imaginary part of the Green function via the fluctuation dissipation theorem and Kubo formula. This allows one to evaluate the vacuum force without resorting to the process of field quantization. These two approaches are used to calculate the attractive force between two nonpenetrating pla…
We study the interplay of thermal and diffractive effects in Casimir energies. We consider plates with edges, oriented either parallel or perpendicular to each other, as well as a single plate with a slit. We compute the Casimir energy at finite temperature using a formalism in which the diffractive effects are encoded in a lower dimensional non-local field theory that lives in the gap between the plates. The formalism allows for a clean separation between direct or geometric effects and diffractive effects, and makes an analytic derivation of the temperature dependence of the free energy poss…
This thesis consists on two separate parts. In the first part, we discuss about the nature of the Casimir effect as the response of a fluctuant medium to the breakdown of the translation symmetry because the presence of intrusions in that medium. To do so, we present a dynamical approximation of Casimir effect, which generalizes Casimir effect studies to out of equilibrium steady states. The equilibrium known case is recovered as a particular case, including the case of electromagnetic (EM) Casimir effect generated because of quantum fluctuations. This formalism also allows us to define (and c…
We consider quantum field theories with boundary on a codimension one hyperplane. Using 1+1 dimensional examples, we clarify the relation between three parameters characterising one-point functions, finite size corrections to the ground state energy and the singularity structure of scattering amplitudes, respectively. We then develop the formalism of boundary states in general D+1 spacetime dimensions and relate the cluster expansion of the boundary state to the correlation functions using reduction formulae. This allows us to derive the cluster expansion in terms of the boundary scattering am…
The prototypical Casimir effect arises when a scalar field is confined between parallel Dirichlet boundaries. We study corrections to this when the boundaries themselves have apertures and edges. We consider several geometries: a single plate with a slit in it, perpendicular plates separated by a gap, and two parallel plates, one of which has a long slit of large width, related to the case of one plate being semi-infinite. We develop a general formalism for studying such problems, based on the wavefunctional for the field in the gap between the plates. This formalism leads to a lower dimension…
A novel formalism for the evaluation of the Casimir-Polder potential in an arbitrary gauge of vector potentials is introduced. The ground state energy of a neutral atom in the presence of an infinite two-dimensional plane with Chern-Simons interaction is derived at zero temperature. The essential feature of the result is its dependence on the antisymmetric part of a dipole moment correlation function.
The electromagnetic field in a typical geometry of the Casimir effect is described in the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism. The main result is the photon distribution function (Keldysh Green function) in any stationary state of the field. A two-plate geometry with a sliding interface in local equilibrium is studied in detail, and full agreement with the results of Rytov fluctuation electrodynamics is found. As an illustration, plots are shown for a spectrum of the energy density between the plates.
We present a simple formalism for the evaluation of the Casimir energy for two spheres and a sphere and a plane, in case of a scalar fluctuating field, valid at any separations. We compare the exact results with various approximation schemes and establish when such schemes become useful. The formalism can be easily extended to any number of spheres and/or planes in three or arbitrary dimensions, with a variety of boundary conditions or non-overlapping potentials/non-ideal reflectors.
In Part I of this series of papers we have described a general formalism to compute the vacuum effects of a scalar field via local (or global) zeta regularization. In the present Part II we exemplify the general formalism in a number of cases which can be solved explicitly by analytical means. More in detail we deal with configurations involving parallel or perpendicular planes and we also discuss the case of a three-dimensional wedge.
We develop the worldline formalism for computations of composite operators such as the fluctuation induced energy-momentum tensor. As an example, we use a fluctuating real scalar field subject to Dirichlet boundary conditions. The resulting worldline representation can be evaluated by worldline Monte-Carlo methods in continuous spacetime. We benchmark this worldline numerical algorithm with the aid of analytically accessible single-plate and parallel-plate Casimir configurations, providing a detailed analysis of statistical and systematic errors. The method generalizes straightforwardly to arb…
We show that Casimir-force calculations for a finite number of non-overlapping obstacles can be mapped onto quantum-mechanical billiard-type problems which are characterized by the scattering of a fictitious point particle off the very same obstacles. With the help of a modified Krein trace formula the genuine/finite part of the Casimir energy is determined as the energy-weighted integral over the log-determinant of the multi-scattering matrix of the analog billiard problem. The formalism is self-regulating and inherently shows that the Casimir energy is governed by the infrared end of the mul…
A differential measurement scheme is proposed which allows for a clear observation of the giant thermal effect for the Casimir force, that was recently predicted to occur in graphene systems at short separation distances. The difference among the Casimir forces acting between a metal-coated sphere and the two halves of a dielectric plate, one uncoated and the other coated with graphene, is calculated in the framework of the Dirac model using the rigorous formalism of the polarization tensor. It is shown that in the proposed configuration both the difference among the Casimir forces and its the…
We derive a general procedure for finding the electromagnetic normal modes in layered structures. We apply this procedure to planar, spherical and cylindrical structures. These normal modes are important in a variety of applications. They are the only input needed in calculations of Casimir interactions. We present explicit expression for the condition for modes and Casimir energy for a large number of specific geometries. The layers are allowed to be two-dimensional so graphene and graphene-like sheets as well as two-dimensional electron gases can be handled within the formalism. Also forces …
In this talk I review various developments in the past year concerning quantum vacuum energy, the Casimir effect. In particular, there has been continuing controversy surrounding the temperature correction to the Lifshitz formula for the Casimir force between real materials, be they metals or semiconductors. Consensus has emerged as to how Casimir energy accelerates in a weak gravitational field; quantum vacuum energy, including the divergent parts which renormalize the masses of the Casimir plates, accelerates indeed according to the equivalence principle. Significant development has been for…
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…
We calculate exactly the Casimir force between a spherical particle and a plane, both with arbitrary dielectric properties, in the non-retarded limit. Using a Spectral Representation formalism, we show that the Casimir force of a sphere made of a material A and a plane made of a material B, differ from the case when the sphere is made of B, and the plane is made of A. The differences in energy and force show the importance of the geometry, and make evident the necessity of realistic descriptions of the sphere-plane system beyond the Proximity Theorem approximation.
We provide further evidence for the nontrivial interplay between geometry and temperature in the Casimir effect. We investigate the temperature dependence of the Casimir force between an inclined semi-infinite plate above an infinite plate in D dimensions using the worldline formalism. Whereas the high-temperature behavior is always found to be linear in T in accordance with dimensional-reduction arguments, different power-law behaviors at small temperatures emerge. Unlike the case of infinite parallel plates, which shows the well-known T^D behavior of the force, we find a T^{D-1} behavior for…
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 show that an isotropic dipolar particle in the vicinity of a substrate made of nonreciprocal plasmonic materials can experience a lateral Casimir force and torque when the particle's temperature differs from that of the slab and the environment. We connect the existence of the lateral force to the asymmetric dispersion of nonreciprocal surface polaritons and the existence of the lateral torque to the spin-momentum locking of such surface waves. Using the formalism of fluctuational electrodynamics, we show that the features of lateral force and torque should be experimentally observable usin…
