New developments in the Casimir effect

By M. Bordag, Umar Mohideen, Vladimir M. Mostepanenko. 2001

1,258 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract We provide a review of both new experimental and theoretical developments in the Casimir effect. The Casimir effect results from the alteration by the boundaries of the zero-point electromagnetic energy. Unique to the Casimir force is its strong dependence on shape, switching from attractive to repulsive as function of the size, geometry and topology of the boundary. Thus, the Casimir force is a direct manifestation of the boundary dependence of quantum vacuum. We discuss in depth the general structure of the infinities in the field theory which are removed by a combination of zeta-functional regularization and heat kernel expansion. Different representations for the regularized vacuum energy are given. The Casimir energies and forces in a number of configurations of interest to applications are calculated. We stress the development of the Casimir force for real media including effects of nonzero temperature, finite conductivity of the boundary metal and surface roughness. Also, the combined effect of these important factors is investigated in detail on the basis of condensed matter physics and quantum field theory at nonzero temperature. The experiments on measuring the Casimir force are also reviewed, starting first with the older measurements and finishing with a detailed presentation of modern precision experiments. The latter are accurately compared with the theoretical results for real media. At the end of the review we provide the most recent constraints on the corrections to Newtonian gravitational law and other hypothetical long-range interactions at submillimeter range obtained from the Casimir force measurements.

Subfields: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Spectroscopy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/17c3506cd12c836aad0c076ace548a59881ba55a

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

In Spectroscopy

Citations in the corpus

The Casimir force between real materials: Experiment and theory (2009, methodology): “…for the test bodies, (ii) precise and reproducible measurement of the separation distance between them and (iii) low electrostatic potential differences, were met for the first time [brief historical survey of the Casimir force measurements performed before 1990 is given by Bordag et al. (2001)].”
Review of modeling electrostatically actuated microelectromechanical systems (2007, background): “systems (NEMSs), such as the Casimir force [99, 100], should be considered.”
Energy conditions in general relativity and quantum field theory (2020, background): “In 1948 Casimir [14] showed that two neutral conducting parallel plates in the vacuum attract each other, cf [120, 121] for reviews.”
Nonlinear behavior for nanoscale electrostatic actuators with Casimir force (2005, background): “Potential applications of Casimir effect in nanoelectromechanical systems (NEMS) and nanotechnology are studied theoretically and experimentally [2–10].”