Casimir interaction of strained graphene

We calculate the Casimir interaction of two freestanding graphene samples under uniaxial strain. Our approach fully takes retardation and dispersion into account and is based on quantum field theoretical expressions for conductivities in terms of the polarization operator. The force shows a rather weak dependence on the realistic values of strain, changing just by a few percent in its maximum as compared to the non-strained case.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, EPL style, misprint correcte

Vacuum energy in the presence of a magnetic string with delta function profile

We present a calculation of the ground state energy of massive spinor fields and massive scalar fields in the background of an inhomogeneous magnetic string with potential given by a delta function. The zeta functional regularization is used and the lowest heat kernel coefficients are calculated. The rest of the analytical calculation adopts the Jost function formalism. In the numerical part of the work the renormalized vacuum energy as a function of the radius $R$ of the string is calculated and plotted for various values of the strength of the potential. The sign of the energy is found to change with the radius. For both scalar and spinor fields the renormalized energy shows no logarithmic behaviour in the limit $R\to 0$, as was expected from the vanishing of the heat kernel coefficient $A_2$, which is not zero for other types of profiles.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figure

The ground state energy of a spinor field in the background of a finite radius flux tube

We develop a formalism for the calculation of the ground state energy of a spinor field in the background of a cylindrically symmetric magnetic field. The energy is expressed in terms of the Jost function of the associated scattering problem. Uniform asymptotic expansions needed are obtained from the Lippmann-Schwinger equation. The general results derived are applied to the background of a finite radius flux tube with a homogeneous magnetic field inside and the ground state energy is calculated numerically as a function of the radius and the flux. It turns out to be negative, remaining smaller by a factor of $\alpha$ than the classical energy of the background except for very small values of the radius which are outside the range of applicability of QED.Comment: 25 pages, 3 figure

Heat Kernel Expansion for Semitransparent Boundaries

We study the heat kernel for an operator of Laplace type with a $\delta$-function potential concentrated on a closed surface. We derive the general form of the small $t$ asymptotics and calculate explicitly several first heat kernel coefficients.Comment: 16 page

Dynamical Casimir Effect in a one-dimensional uniformly contracting cavity

We consider particle creation (the Dynamical Casimir effect) in a uniformly contracting ideal one-dimensional cavity non-perturbatively. The exact expression for the energy spectrum of created particles is obtained and its dependence on parameters of the problem is discussed. Unexpectedly, the number of created particles depends on the duration of the cavity contracting non-monotonously. This is explained by quantum interference of the events of particle creation which are taking place only at the moments of acceleration and deceleration of a boundary, while stable particle states exist (and thus no particles are created) at the time of contracting.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure

On the ground state energy for a penetrable sphere and for a dielectric ball

We analyse the ultraviolet divergencies in the ground state energy for a penetrable sphere and a dielectric ball. We argue that for massless fields subtraction of the ``empty space'' or the ``unbounded medium'' contribution is not enough to make the ground state energy finite whenever the heat kernel coefficient $a_2$ is not zero. It turns out that $a_2\ne 0$ for a penetrable sphere, a general dielectric background and the dielectric ball. To our surprise, for more singular configurations, as in the presence of sharp boundaries, the heat kernel coefficients behave to some extend better than in the corresponding smooth cases, making, for instance, the dilute dielectric ball a well defined problem.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure, subm. to Phys. Rev.

Ground state energy in a wormhole space-time

The ground state energy of the massive scalar field with non-conformal coupling $\xi$ on the short-throat flat-space wormhole background is calculated by using zeta renormalization approach. We discuss the renormalization and relevant heat kernel coefficients in detail. We show that the stable configuration of wormholes can exist for $\xi > 0.123$. In particular case of massive conformal scalar field with $\xi=1/6$, the radius of throat of stable wormhole $a\approx 0.16/m$. The self-consistent wormhole has radius of throat $a\approx 0.0141 l_p$ and mass of scalar boson $m\approx 11.35 m_p$ ($l_p$ and $m_p$ are the Planck length and mass, respectively).Comment: revtex, 18 pages, 3 eps figures. accepted in Phys.Rev.