A theory of electromagnetic fluctuations for metallic surfaces and van der Waals interactions between metallic bodies
Quantum Physics
2008-11-26 v3 Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
A new general expression is derived for the fluctuating electromagnetic field outside a metal surface, in terms of its surface impedance. It provides a generalization to real metals of Lifshitz theory of molecular interactions between dielectric solids. The theory is used to compute the radiative heat transfer between two parallel metal surfaces at different temperatures. It is shown that a measurement of this quantity may provide an experimental resolution of a long-standing controversy about the effect of thermal corrections on the Casimir force between real metal plates.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0511248,
title = {A theory of electromagnetic fluctuations for metallic surfaces and van der Waals interactions between metallic bodies},
author = {Giuseppe Bimonte},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0511248},
year = {2008}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures; typos corrected, minor changes to match the published version in Physical Review Letters