Dynamical Casimir effect with Robin boundary conditions in a three dimensional open cavity

We consider a massless scalar field in 1+1 dimensions inside a cavity composed by a fixed plate, which imposes on the field a Robin BC, and an oscillating one, which imposes on the field a Dirichlet BC. Assuming that the plate moves for a finite time interval, and considering parametric resonance, we compute the total number of created particles inside the cavity. We generalize our results to the case of two parallel plates in 3+1 dimensions.Comment: This work was presented in the Conference QFEXT09, held at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK, USA, September 21-25, 2009, and will appear in the proceedings of this conference. It contains 4 figure

Estimative for the size of the compactification radius of a one extra dimension Universe

In this work, we use the Casimir effect to probe the existence of one extra dimension. We begin by evaluating the Casimir pressure between two plates in a $M^4\times S^1$ manifold, and then use an appropriate statistical analysis in order to compare the theoretical expression with a recent experimental data and set bounds for the compactification radius

The Zeta Function Method and the Harmonic Oscillator Propagator

We show how the pre-exponential factor of the Feynman propagator for the harmonic oscillator can be computed by the generalized $\zeta$-function method. Besides, we establish a direct equivalence between this method and Schwinger's propertime method.Comment: 12 latex pages, no figure

Path Integral and the Induction Law

We show how the induction law is correctly used in the path integral computation of the free particle propagator. The way this primary path integral example is treated in most textbooks is a little bit missleading.Comment: 5 latex pages, no figure