Comment on ''Temperature dependence of the Casimir force for lossy bulk media''

Journal Article · Thu Sep 15 00:00:00 EDT 2011 · Physical Review. A

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVA.84.036501· OSTI ID:22072237

Bimonte, G ^[1]; Klimchitskaya, G L ^[2]; Mostepanenko, V M ^[3]

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1. Dipartimento di Scienze Fisiche, Universita di Napoli Federico II, Complesso Universitario MSA, Via Cintia I, I-80126 Napoli (Italy) and INFN, Sezione di Napoli, Napoli (Italy)
2. North-West Technical University, Millionnaya St. 5, St. Petersburg 191065 (Russian Federation)
3. Department of Physics, Federal University of Paraiba, C.P. 5008, CEP 58059-900, Joao Pessoa (Brazil)

Recently Yampol'skii et al.[Phys. Rev. A 82, 032511 (2010)] advocated that Lifshitz theory is not applicable when the characteristic wavelength of the fluctuating electromagnetic field, responsible for the thermal correction to the Casimir force, is larger than the size of the metal test bodies. It was claimed that this is the case in experiments which exclude Lifshitz theory combined with the Drude model. We calculate the wavelengths of the evanescent waves making the dominant contribution to the thermal correction and we find that they are much smaller than the sizes of the test bodies. The opposite conclusion obtained by the authors arose from confusion between propagating and evanescent waves.

• OSTI ID: 22072237
• Journal Information: Physical Review. A, Vol. 84, Issue 3; Other Information: (c) 2011 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1050-2947
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE
CASIMIR EFFECT
CORRECTIONS
ELECTROMAGNETIC FIELDS
METALS
TEMPERATURE DEPENDENCE
WAVELENGTHS