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Attractive Casimir Forces in a Closed Geometry

Quantum Physics 2008-11-26 v2 Statistical Mechanics High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

We study the Casimir force acting on a conducting piston with arbitrary cross section. We find the exact solution for a rectangular cross section and the first three terms in the asymptotic expansion for small height to width ratio when the cross section is arbitrary. Though weakened by the presence of the walls, the Casimir force turns out to be always attractive. Claims of repulsive Casimir forces for related configurations, like the cube, are invalidated by cutoff dependence.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0509071,
  title  = {Attractive Casimir Forces in a Closed Geometry},
  author = {M. P. Hertzberg and R. L. Jaffe and M. Kardar and A. Scardicchio},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0509071},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

An updated version to coincide with the one published December 2005 in PRL. 4 pages, 2 figures