Casimir self-stress in a dielectric sphere

Journal Article · Wed Aug 15 04:00:00 EDT 2018 · Annals of Physics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/J.AOP.2018.06.002· OSTI ID:22848372

Avni, Yael; Leonhardt, Ulf ^[1]

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1. Department of Physics of Complex Systems, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, 76100 (Israel)

The dielectric sphere has been an important test case for understanding and calculating the vacuum force of a dielectric body onto itself. Here we develop a method for computing this force in homogeneous spheres of arbitrary dielectric properties embedded in arbitrary homogeneous backgrounds, assuming only that both materials are isotropic and dispersionless. Our results agree with known special cases; most notably we reproduce the prediction of Boyer and Schwinger et al. of a repulsive Casimir force of a perfectly reflecting shell. Our results disagree with the literature in the dilute limit. We argue that the Casimir self-stress cannot be regarded as due to pair-wise Casimir–Polder interactions, but rather due to reflections of virtual electromagnetic waves.

• OSTI ID: 22848372
• Journal Information: Annals of Physics, Journal Name: Annals of Physics Vol. 395; ISSN 0003-4916; ISSN APNYA6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
CASIMIR EFFECT
DIELECTRIC PROPERTIES
FORECASTING
INTERACTIONS
QUANTUM OPTICS
REFLECTION
SPHERES
STRESSES