We propose that the dynamic Casimir effect is a mechanism that converts the energy of neutron starquakes into γ–rays. This mechanism efficiently produces photons from electromagnetic Casimir energy released by the rapid motion of a dielectric medium into a vacuum. Estimates based on the cutoff energy of the gamma ray bursts and the volume involved in a starquake indicate that the total gamma ra...

We discuss the Casimir effect for a massive bosonic field with mixed (Dirichlet-Neumann) boundary conditions. We use the ζ-function regularization prescription to obtain our physical results. Particularly, we analyse how the Casimir energy varies with the mass of the field and compare this mass dependence with those obtained for other boundary conditions. This is done graphically. Some other gr...

We review a simple technique for evaluating the vacuum energy stemming from non-trivial boundary conditions and present results for the Casimir energy of a massive fermionic field confined in a d + 1-dimensional slab-bag and the effect of a uniform magnetic field on the vacuum energy of confined massive bosonic and fermionic fields. New results concerning the Casimir energy and the evaluation o...

We study interactions between localized scatterers on metallic carbon nanotubes by a mapping onto a onedimensional Casimir problem. Backscattering of electrons between localized scattering potentials mediates long-range forces between them. We model spatially localized scatterers by local and nonlocal potentials and treat simultaneously the effects of intravalley and intervalley backscattering....

– The Casimir force between two metallic plates is affected by their roughness state. This effect is usually calculated through the so-called 'proximity force approximation' which is only valid for small enough wavevectors in the spectrum of the roughness profile. We introduce here a more general description with a wavevector-dependent roughness sensitivity of the Casimir effect. Since the prox...

Abstract: The classic argument by Polyakov showing that monopoles produce confinement in the Higgs phase of the Georgi-Glashow model is generalized to study the spectrum of k-strings. We find that the leading-order low-density approximation yields Casimir scaling in the weakly-coupled 3-d SU(N) Georgi-Glashow model. Corrections to the Casimir formula are considered. When k ∼ N , the non-diluten...

The experimental observation of intense light emission by acoustically driven, periodically collapsing bubbles of air in water (sonoluminescence) has yet to receive an adequate explanation. One of the most intriguing ideas is that the conversion of acoustic energy into photons occurs quantum mechanically, through a dynamical version of the Casimir effect. We have argued elsewhere that in the ad...

The problem with the temperature dependence of the Casimir force is investigated. Specifically, the entropy behavior in the low temperature limit, which caused debates in the literature, is analyzed. It is stressed that the behavior of the relaxation frequency in the T-->0 limit does not play a physical role since the anomalous skin effect dominates in this range. In contrast with the previous ...