Calculation of nonzero-temperature Casimir forces in the time domain

Journal Article · Fri Apr 15 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.83.040503· OSTI ID:21544541

Pan, Kai; Reid, M T. Homer ^[1]; McCauley, Alexander P; Rodriguez, Alejandro W ^[1]; White, Jacob K ^[2]; Johnson, Steven G ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)
2. Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)

We show how to compute Casimir forces at nonzero temperatures with time-domain electromagnetic simulations, for example, using a finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. Compared to our previous zero-temperature time-domain method, only a small modification is required, but we explain that some care is required to properly capture the zero-frequency contribution. We validate the method against analytical and numerical frequency-domain calculations, and show a surprising high-temperature disappearance of a nonmonotonic behavior previously demonstrated in a pistonlike geometry.

• OSTI ID: 21544541
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 83, Issue 4; Other Information: DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevA.83.040503; (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS
CALCULATION METHODS
CASIMIR EFFECT
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
FREQUENCY DEPENDENCE
GEOMETRY
SIMULATION
TEMPERATURE RANGE
TIME DEPENDENCE
MATHEMATICS