English

Casimir forces in Bose-Einstein condensates: finite size effects in three-dimensional rectangular cavities

High Energy Physics - Theory 2011-02-16 v3 Statistical Mechanics Quantum Physics

Abstract

The Casimir force due to {\it thermal} fluctuations (or pseudo-Casimir force) was previously calculated for the perfect Bose gas in the slab geometry for various boundary conditions. The Casimir pressure due to {\it quantum} fluctuations in a weakly-interacting dilute Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) confined to a parallel plate geometry was recently calculated for Dirichlet boundary conditions. In this paper we calculate the Casimir energy and pressure due to quantum fluctuations in a zero-temperature homogeneous weakly-interacting dilute BEC confined to a parallel plate geometry with periodic boundary conditions and include higher-order corrections which we refer to as Bogoliubov corrections. The leading order term is identified as the Casimir energy of a massless scalar field moving with wave velocity equal to the speed of sound in the BEC. We then obtain the leading order Casimir pressure in a general three-dimensional rectangular cavity of arbitrary lengths and obtain the finite-size correction to the parallel plate scenario.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.hep-th/0510238,
  title  = {Casimir forces in Bose-Einstein condensates: finite size effects in three-dimensional rectangular cavities},
  author = {Ariel Edery},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:hep-th/0510238},
  year   = {2011}
}

Comments

12 pages; no figures; v.2: version accepted for publication in JSTAT v.3: references added

R2 v1 2026-07-22T15:32:41.417Z