728 research outputs found
Casimir interaction between a plate and a cylinder
We find the exact Casimir force between a plate and a cylinder, a geometry
intermediate between parallel plates, where the force is known exactly, and the
plate--sphere, where it is known at large separations. The force has an
unexpectedly weak decay \sim L/(H^3 \ln(H/R)) at large plate--cylinder
separations H (L and R are the cylinder length and radius), due to transverse
magnetic modes. Path integral quantization with a partial wave expansion
additionally gives a qualitative difference for the density of states of
electric and magnetic modes, and corrections at finite temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
On the Casimir effect for parallel plates in the spacetime with one extra compactified dimension
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.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure
Casimir Forces between Compact Objects: I. The Scalar Case
We have developed an exact, general method to compute Casimir interactions
between a finite number of compact objects of arbitrary shape and separation.
Here, we present details of the method for a scalar field to illustrate our
approach in its most simple form; the generalization to electromagnetic fields
is outlined in Ref. [1]. The interaction between the objects is attributed to
quantum fluctuations of source distributions on their surfaces, which we
decompose in terms of multipoles. A functional integral over the effective
action of multipoles gives the resulting interaction. Each object's shape and
boundary conditions enter the effective action only through its scattering
matrix. Their relative positions enter through universal translation matrices
that depend only on field type and spatial dimension. The distinction of our
method from the pairwise summation of two-body potentials is elucidated in
terms of the scattering processes between three objects. To illustrate the
power of the technique, we consider Robin boundary conditions , which interpolate between Dirichlet and Neumann cases as
is varied. We obtain the interaction between two such spheres
analytically in a large separation expansion, and numerically for all
separations. The cases of unequal radii and unequal are studied. We
find sign changes in the force as a function of separation in certain ranges of
and see deviations from the proximity force approximation even at
short separations, most notably for Neumann boundary conditions.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figure
Mode summation approach to Casimir effect between two objects
In this paper, we explore the TGTG formula from the perspective of mode
summation approach. Both scalar fields and electromagnetic fields are
considered. In this approach, one has to first solve the equation of motion to
find a wave basis for each object. The two T's in the TGTG formula are
T-matrices representing the Lippmann-Schwinger T-operators, one for each of the
objects. The two G's in the TGTG formula are the translation matrices, relating
the wave basis of an object to the wave basis of the other object. After
discussing the general theory, we apply the prescription to derive the explicit
formulas for the Casimir energies for the sphere-sphere, sphere-plane,
cylinder-cylinder and cylinder-plane interactions. First the T-matrices for a
plane, a sphere and a cylinder are derived for the following cases: the object
is imposed with general Robin boundary conditions; the object is
semitransparent; and the object is magnetodielectric. Then the operator
approach is used to derive the translation matrices. From these, the explicit
TGTG formula for each of the scenarios can be written down. Besides summarizing
all the TGTG formulas that have been derived so far, we also provide the TGTG
formulas for some scenarios that have not been considered before.Comment: 42 page
Casimir Forces: An Exact Approach for Periodically Deformed Objects
A novel approach for calculating Casimir forces between periodically deformed
objects is developed. This approach allows, for the first time, a rigorous
non-perturbative treatment of the Casimir effect for disconnected objects
beyond Casimir's original two-plate configuration. The approach takes into
account the collective nature of fluctuation induced forces, going beyond the
commonly used pairwise summation of two-body van der Waals forces. As an
application of the method, we exactly calculate the Casimir force due to scalar
field fluctuations between a flat and a rectangular corrugated plate. In the
latter case, the force is found to be always attractive.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure
The role of Surface Plasmon modes in the Casimir Effect
In this paper we study the role of surface plasmon modes in the Casimir
effect. First we write the Casimir energy as a sum over the modes of a real
cavity. We may identify two sorts of modes, two evanescent surface plasmon
modes and propagative modes. As one of the surface plasmon modes becomes
propagative for some choice of parameters we adopt an adiabatic mode definition
where we follow this mode into the propagative sector and count it together
with the surface plasmon contribution, calling this contribution "plasmonic".
The remaining modes are propagative cavity modes, which we call "photonic". The
Casimir energy contains two main contributions, one coming from the plasmonic,
the other from the photonic modes. Surprisingly we find that the plasmonic
contribution to the Casimir energy becomes repulsive for intermediate and large
mirror separations. Alternatively, we discuss the common surface plasmon
defintion, which includes only evanescent waves, where this effect is not
found. We show that, in contrast to an intuitive expectation, for both
definitions the Casimir energy is the sum of two very large contributions which
nearly cancel each other. The contribution of surface plasmons to the Casimir
energy plays a fundamental role not only at short but also at large distances.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures. TQMFA200
Modification of energy shifts of atoms by the presence of a boundary in a thermal bath and the Casimir-Polder force
We study the modification by the presence of a plane wall of energy level
shifts of two-level atoms which are in multipolar coupling with quantized
electromagnetic fields in a thermal bath in a formalism which separates the
contributions of thermal fluctuations and radiation reaction and allows a
distinct treatment to atoms in the ground and excited states. The position
dependent energy shifts give rise to an induced force acting on the atoms. We
are able to identify three different regimes where the force shows distinct
features and examine, in all regimes, the behaviors of this force in both the
low temperature limit and the high temperature limit for both the ground state
and excited state atoms, thus providing some physical insights into the
atom-wall interaction at finite temperature. In particular, we show that both
the magnitude and the direction of the force acting on an atom may have a clear
dependence on atomic the polarization directions. In certain cases, a change of
relative ratio of polarizations in different directions may result in a change
of direction of the force.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figure
Fluctuation induced quantum interactions between compact objects and a plane mirror
The interaction of compact objects with an infinitely extended mirror plane
due to quantum fluctuations of a scalar or electromagnetic field that scatters
off the objects is studied. The mirror plane is assumed to obey either
Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions or to be perfectly reflecting. Using
the method of images, we generalize a recently developed approach for compact
objects in unbounded space [1,2] to show that the Casimir interaction between
the objects and the mirror plane can be accurately obtained over a wide range
of separations in terms of charge and current fluctuations of the objects and
their images. Our general result for the interaction depends only on the
scattering matrices of the compact objects. It applies to scalar fields with
arbitrary boundary conditions and to the electromagnetic field coupled to
dielectric objects. For the experimentally important electromagnetic Casimir
interaction between a perfectly conducting sphere and a plane mirror we present
the first results that apply at all separations. We obtain both an asymptotic
large distance expansion and the two lowest order correction terms to the
proximity force approximation. The asymptotic Casimir-Polder potential for an
atom and a mirror is generalized to describe the interaction between a
dielectric sphere and a mirror, involving higher order multipole
polarizabilities that are important at sub-asymptotic distances.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure
Casimir Energy of a Spherical Shell
The Casimir energy for a conducting spherical shell of radius 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 longstanding
criticism raised against earlier calculations of the Casimir energy.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages, 1 figur
Casimir forces between arbitrary compact objects
We develop an exact method for computing the Casimir energy between arbitrary
compact objects, either dielectrics or perfect conductors. The energy is
obtained as an interaction between multipoles, generated by quantum current
fluctuations. The objects' shape and composition enter only through their
scattering matrices. The result is exact when all multipoles are included, and
converges rapidly. A low frequency expansion yields the energy as a series in
the ratio of the objects' size to their separation. As an example, we obtain
this series for two dielectric spheres and the full interaction at all
separations for perfectly conducting spheres.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur
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