English

Comment on the sign of the Casimir force

Quantum Physics 2008-11-26 v3 High Energy Physics - Theory

Abstract

I show that reflection positivity implies that the force between any mirror pair of charge-conjugate probes of the quantum vacuum is attractive. This generalizes a recent theorem of Kenneth and Klich to interacting quantum fields, to arbitrary semiclassical bodies, and to quantized probes with non-overlapping wavefunctions. I also prove that the torques on charge-conjugate probes tend always to rotate them into a mirror-symmetric position.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0611082,
  title  = {Comment on the sign of the Casimir force},
  author = {C. P. Bachas},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0611082},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

13 pages, 1 figure, Latex file. Several points clarified and expanded, two references added.