dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaCasimir Force between a Dielectric Sphere and a Wall: A Model for Amplification of Vacuum Fluctuations
| Authors | L. H. Ford |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | quant-ph/9804055 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9804055 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevA.58.4279 |
| Journal | Phys. Rev. A, 58 (1998) 4279 |
Abstract
The interaction between a polarizable particle and a reflecting wall is examined. A macroscopic approach is adopted in which the averaged force is computed from the Maxwell stress tensor. The particular case of a perfectly reflecting wall and a sphere with a dielectric function given by the Drude model is examined in detail. It is found that the force can be expressed as the sum of a monotonically decaying function of position and of an oscillatory piece. At large separations, the oscillatory piece is the dominant contribution, and is much larger than the Casimir-Polder interaction that arises in the limit that the sphere is a perfect conductor. It is argued that this enhancement of the force can be interpreted in terms of the frequency spectrum of vacuum fluctuations. In the limit of a perfectly conducting sphere, there are cancellations between different parts of the spectrum which no longer occur as completely in the case of a sphere with frequency dependent polarizability. Estimates of the magnitude of the oscillatory component of the force suggest that it may be large enough to be observable.
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"abstract": "The interaction between a polarizable particle and a reflecting wall is\nexamined. A macroscopic approach is adopted in which the averaged force is\ncomputed from the Maxwell stress tensor. The particular case of a perfectly\nreflecting wall and a sphere with a dielectric function given by the Drude\nmodel is examined in detail. It is found that the force can be expressed as the\nsum of a monotonically decaying function of position and of an oscillatory\npiece. At large separations, the oscillatory piece is the dominant\ncontribution, and is much larger than the Casimir-Polder interaction that\narises in the limit that the sphere is a perfect conductor. It is argued that\nthis enhancement of the force can be interpreted in terms of the frequency\nspectrum of vacuum fluctuations. In the limit of a perfectly conducting sphere,\nthere are cancellations between different parts of the spectrum which no longer\noccur as completely in the case of a sphere with frequency dependent\npolarizability. Estimates of the magnitude of the oscillatory component of the\nforce suggest that it may be large enough to be observable.",
"arxiv_id": "quant-ph/9804055",
"authors": [
"L. H. Ford"
],
"categories": [
"quant-ph",
"cond-mat",
"hep-th"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevA.58.4279",
"journal_ref": "Phys. Rev. A, 58 (1998) 4279",
"title": "Casimir Force between a Dielectric Sphere and a Wall: A Model for Amplification of Vacuum Fluctuations",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/quant-ph/9804055"
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