99 research outputs found
Experimental procedures for precision measurements of the Casimir force with an Atomic Force Microscope
Experimental methods and procedures required for precision measurements of
the Casimir force are presented. In particular, the best practices for
obtaining stable cantilevers, calibration of the cantilever, correction of
thermal and mechanical drift, measuring the contact separation, sphere radius
and the roughness are discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
Control of the Casimir force by the modification of dielectric properties with light
The experimental demonstration of the modification of the Casimir force
between a gold coated sphere and a single-crystal Si membrane by light pulses
is performed. The specially designed and fabricated Si membrane was irradiated
with 514 nm laser pulses of 5 ms width in high vacuum leading to a change of
the charge-carrier density. The difference in the Casimir force in the presence
and in the absence of laser radiation was measured by means of an atomic force
microscope as a function of separation at different powers of the absorbed
light. The total experimental error of the measured force differences at a
separation of 100 nm varies from 10 to 20% in different measurements. The
experimental results are compared with theoretical computations using the
Lifshitz theory at both zero and laboratory temperatures. The total theoretical
error determined mostly by the uncertainty in the concentration of charge
carriers when the light is incident is found to be about 14% at separations
less than 140 nm. The experimental data are consistent with the Lifshitz theory
at laboratory temperature, if the static dielectric permittivity of
high-resistivity Si in the absence of light is assumed to be finite. If the dc
conductivity of high-resistivity Si in the absence of light is included into
the model of dielectric response, the Lifshitz theory at nonzero temperature is
shown to be experimentally inconsistent at 95% confidence. The demonstrated
phenomenon of the modification of the Casimir force through a change of the
charge-carrier density is topical for applications of the Lifshitz theory to
real materials in fields ranging from nanotechnology and condensed matter
physics to the theory of fundamental interactions.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, 2 table
Rigorous approach to the comparison between experiment and theory in Casimir force measurements
In most experiments on the Casimir force the comparison between measurement
data and theory was done using the concept of the root-mean-square deviation, a
procedure that has been criticized in literature. Here we propose a special
statistical analysis which should be performed separately for the experimental
data and for the results of the theoretical computations. In so doing, the
random, systematic, and total experimental errors are found as functions of
separation, taking into account the distribution laws for each error at 95%
confidence. Independently, all theoretical errors are combined to obtain the
total theoretical error at the same confidence. Finally, the confidence
interval for the differences between theoretical and experimental values is
obtained as a function of separation. This rigorous approach is applied to two
recent experiments on the Casimir effect.Comment: 10 pages, iopart.cls is used, to appear in J. Phys. A (special issue:
Proceedings of QFEXT05, Barcelona, Sept. 5-9, 2005
New features of the thermal Casimir force at small separations
The difference of the thermal Casimir forces at different temperatures
between real metals is shown to increase with a decrease of the separation
distance. This opens new opportunities for the demonstration of the thermal
dependence of the Casimir force. Both configurations of two parallel plates and
a sphere above a plate are considered. Different approaches to the theoretical
description of the thermal Casimir force are shown to lead to different
measurable predictions.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Let
Casimir-like tunneling-induced electronic forces
We study the quantum forces that act between two nearby conductors due to
electronic tunneling. We derive an expression for these forces by calculating
the flux of momentum arising from the overlap of evanescent electronic fields.
Our result is written in terms of the electronic reflection amplitudes of the
conductors and it has the same structure as Lifshitz's formula for the
electromagnetically mediated Casimir forces. We evaluate the tunneling force
between two semiinfinite conductors and between two thin films separated by an
insulating gap. We discuss some applications of our results.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figs, submitted to Proc. of QFEXT'05, to be published in
J. Phys.
Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a dielectric plate: thermodynamics and experiment
The low-temperature behavior of the Casimir-Polder free energy and entropy
for an atom near a dielectric plate are found on the basis of the Lifshitz
theory. The obtained results are shown to be thermodynamically consistent if
the dc conductivity of the plate material is disregarded. With inclusion of dc
conductivity, both the standard Lifshitz theory (for all dielectrics) and its
generalization taking into account screening effects (for a wide range of
dielectrics) violate the Nernst heat theorem. The inclusion of the screening
effects is also shown to be inconsistent with experimental data of Casimir
force measurements. The physical reasons for this inconsistency are elucidated.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figure; improved discussion; to appear in J. Phys. A:
Math. Theor. (Fast Track Communications
Higher order conductivity corrections to the Casimir force
The finite conductivity corrections to the Casimir force in two
configurations are calculated in the third and fourth orders in relative
penetration depth of electromagnetic zero oscillations into the metal. The
obtained analytical perturbation results are compared with recent computations.
Applications to the modern experiments are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
Observation of the thermal Casimir force
Quantum theory predicts the existence of the Casimir force between
macroscopic bodies, due to the zero-point energy of electromagnetic field modes
around them. This quantum fluctuation-induced force has been experimentally
observed for metallic and semiconducting bodies, although the measurements to
date have been unable to clearly settle the question of the correct
low-frequency form of the dielectric constant dispersion (the Drude model or
the plasma model) to be used for calculating the Casimir forces. At finite
temperature a thermal Casimir force, due to thermal, rather than quantum,
fluctuations of the electromagnetic field, has been theoretically predicted
long ago. Here we report the experimental observation of the thermal Casimir
force between two gold plates. We measured the attractive force between a flat
and a spherical plate for separations between 0.7 m and 7 m. An
electrostatic force caused by potential patches on the plates' surfaces is
included in the analysis. The experimental results are in excellent agreement
(reduced of 1.04) with the Casimir force calculated using the Drude
model, including the T=300 K thermal force, which dominates over the quantum
fluctuation-induced force at separations greater than 3 m. The plasma
model result is excluded in the measured separation range.Comment: 6 page
Quantum inequalities for the free Rarita-Schwinger fields in flat spacetime
Using the methods developed by Fewster and colleagues, we derive a quantum
inequality for the free massive spin- Rarita-Schwinger fields in
the four dimensional Minkowski spacetime. Our quantum inequality bound for the
Rarita-Schwinger fields is weaker, by a factor of 2, than that for the
spin- Dirac fields. This fact along with other quantum inequalities
obtained by various other authors for the fields of integer spin (bosonic
fields) using similar methods lead us to conjecture that, in the flat
spacetime, separately for bosonic and fermionic fields, the quantum inequality
bound gets weaker as the the number of degrees of freedom of the field
increases. A plausible physical reason might be that the more the number of
field degrees of freedom, the more freedom one has to create negative energy,
therefore, the weaker the quantum inequality bound.Comment: Revtex, 11 pages, to appear in PR
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