Thermal Casimir Effect in the Plane-Sphere Geometry

Journal Article · Fri Jan 29 00:00:00 EST 2010 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.104.040403· OSTI ID:21386762

Canaguier-Durand, Antoine; Lambrecht, Astrid; Reynaud, Serge ^[1]; Neto, Paulo A. Maia ^[2]

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1. Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, CNRS, ENS, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie case 74, Campus Jussieu, F-75252 Paris Cedex 05 (France)
2. Instituto de Fisica, UFRJ, CP 68528, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, 21941-972 (Brazil)

The thermal Casimir force between two metallic plates is known to depend on the description of material properties. For large separations the dissipative Drude model leads to a force a factor of 2 smaller than the lossless plasma model. Here we show that the plane-sphere geometry, in which current experiments are performed, decreases this ratio to a factor of 3/2, as revealed by exact numerical and large-distance analytical calculations. For perfect reflectors, we find a repulsive contribution of thermal photons to the force and negative entropy values at intermediate distances.

• OSTI ID: 21386762
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Vol. 104, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.040403; (c) 2010 The American Physical Society; ISSN 0031-9007
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
CASIMIR EFFECT
ENTROPY
METALS
PHOTONS
PLASMA
PLATES
SPHERICAL CONFIGURATION
BOSONS
CONFIGURATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ELEMENTS
MASSLESS PARTICLES
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
THERMODYNAMIC PROPERTIES