The Casimir effect for thin plasma sheets and the role of the surface plasmons

We consider the Casimir force betweeen two dielectric bodies described by the plasma model and between two infinitely thin plasma sheets. In both cases in addition to the photon modes surface plasmons are present in the spectrum of the electromagnetic field. We investigate the contribution of both types of modes to the Casimir force and confirm resp. find in both models large compensations between the plasmon modes themselves and between them and the photon modes especially at large distances. Our conclusion is that the separation of the vacuum energy into plasmon and photon contributions must be handled with care except for the case of small separations.Comment: submitted to JPhysA Special Issue QFEXT'05, replaced due to a wrong Latex comman

Investigation of dynamical systems using tools of the theory of invariants and projective geometry

The investigation of nonlinear dynamical systems of the type $\dot{x}=P(x,y,z),\dot{y}=Q(x,y,z),\dot{z}=R(x,y,z)$ by means of reduction to some ordinary differential equations of the second order in the form $y''+a_1(x,y)y'^3+3a_2(x,y)y'^2+3a_3(x,y)y'+a_4(x,y)=0$ is done. The main backbone of this investigation was provided by the theory of invariants developed by S. Lie, R. Liouville and A. Tresse at the end of the 19th century and the projective geometry of E. Cartan. In our work two, in some sense supplementary, systems are considered: the Lorenz system $\dot{x}=\sigma (y-x), \dot{y}=rx-y-zx,\dot{z}=xy-bz$ and the R\"o\ss ler system $\dot{x}=-y-z,\dot{y}=x+ay,\dot{z}=b+xz-cz.$. The invarinats for the ordinary differential equations, which correspond to the systems mentioned abouve, are evaluated. The connection of values of the invariants with characteristics of dynamical systems is established.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, to appear in J. of Applied Mathematics (ZAMP

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

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

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.

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

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

Long range chromomagnetic fields at high temperature

The magnetic mass of neutral gluons in Abelian chromomagnetic field at high temperature is calculated in SU(2)$ gluodynamics. It is noted that such type fields are spontaneously generated at high temperature. The mass is computed either from the Schwinger-Dyson equation accounting for the one-loop polarization tensor or in Monte-Carlo simulations on a lattice. In latter case, an average magnetic flux penetrating a plaquette is measured for a number of lattices. Both calculations are in agreement with each other and result in zero magnetic mass. Some applications of the results obtained are discussed.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur

Casimir energy in the Fulling--Rindler vacuum

The Casimir energy is evaluated for massless scalar fields under Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, and for the electromagnetic field with perfect conductor boundary conditions on one and two infinite parallel plates moving by uniform proper acceleration through the Fulling--Rindler vacuum in an arbitrary number of spacetime dimension. For the geometry of a single plate the both regions of the right Rindler wedge, (i) on the right (RR region) and (ii) on the left (RL region) of the plate are considered. The zeta function technique is used, in combination with contour integral representations. The Casimir energies for separate RR and RL regions contain pole and finite contributions. For an infinitely thin plate taking RR and RL regions together, in odd spatial dimensions the pole parts cancel and the Casimir energy for the whole Rindler wedge is finite. In $d=3$ spatial dimensions the total Casimir energy for a single plate is negative for Dirichlet scalar and positive for Neumann scalar and the electromagnetic field. The total Casimir energy for two plates geometry is presented in the form of a sum of the Casimir energies for separate plates plus an additional interference term. The latter is negative for all values of the plates separation for both Dirichlet and Neumann scalars, and for the electromagnetic field.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures, references added, typos corrected, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.