Abstract. The thermal Casimir effect in ideal metal rectangular boxes is considered using the method of zeta functional regularization. The renormalization procedure is suggested which provides the finite expression for the Casimir free energy in any restricted quantization volume. This expression satisfies the classical limit at high temperature and leads to zero thermal Casimir force for syst...

It has been suggested by various authors that the ‘dynamical Casimir effect’ might prove responsible for the production of visible-light photons in the bubble collapse which occurs in sonoluminescence. Previously, I have argued against this point of view based on energetic considerations, in the adiabatic approximation. Those arguments have recently been strengthened by the demonstration of the...

It has been suggested by various authors that the 'dynamical Casimir effect' might prove responsible for the production of visible-light photons in the bubble collapse which occurs in sonoluminescence. Previously, I have argued against this point of view based on energetic considerations, in the adiabatic approximation. Those arguments have recently been strengthened by the demonstration of the...

We discuss the renormalisation of the ground state energy of massive fields obeying boundary conditions, i.e., of the Casimir effect, and emphasise the role of the mass for its understanding. This is an extended abstract of a talk given at the topical group meeting on Casimir Forces at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics on March 15-29, 1998. Renormalisation is a key to the understa...

– We study the Casimir effect for the perfect Bose-gase in the slab geometry for various boundary conditions. We show that the grand canonical potential per unit area at the bulk critical chemical potential μ = 0 has the standard asymptotic form with universal Casimir terms. In contrast to the well-known Casimir effect for the photon gas, see e.g. [1], this effect for the massive quantum partic...

Vacuum fluctuations have observable consequences, like the Casimir force between two plates in vacuum. There now exists good agreement between theory and experimental measurements of this force. The role of the Casimir effect in diverse fields such as Quantum Field Theory, Condensed Matter Physics and Atomic Physics etc is discussed. A brief description of current applications to nanotechnology...

An experimental set-up for the measurement of the Casimir effect at separations larger than a few microns is presented. The apparatus is based on a mechanical resonator and uses a homodyne detection technique to sense the Casimir force in the plane-parallel configuration. First measurements in the 3-10 micrometer range show an unexpected large force probably due to patch effects.

We study the actions of the Lie algebra nsl(2,C) of SL(2,C) and the associated Casimir operator on the space of pseudodifferential operators of n variables. We describe the effect of the Casimir operator on a pseudodifferential operator in connection with the symbol map and construct an nsl(2,C)-invariant lifting of the symbol map.

We consider a massless scalar field obeying Dirichlet boundary conditions on the walls of a two-dimensional L×b rectangular box, divided by a movable partition (piston) into two boxes of dimensions a × b and (L − a) × b. We compute the Casimir force on the piston in the limit L → ∞. Regardless the value of a/b, the piston is attracted to the nearest end of the box. Asymptotic expressions for th...

Casimir effects have for many years been the subject of painstaking experiments and a variety of theoretical techniques, but it is only recently that they have attracted widespread attention. The surge of interest is attributable in large part to experimental developments. To the list of subtler reasons I would add one that can best be appreciated by the cognoscenti: Larry’s lapidary elucidatio...