English

Maxwell Eigenmode approach to the Casimir-Lifshitz Torque

Mesoscale and Nanoscale Physics 2019-07-24 v2 Quantum Physics

Abstract

More than forty years ago, Barash published a calculation of the full retarded Casimir-Lifshitz torque for planar birefringent media with arbitrary degrees of anisotropy. An independent theoretical confirmation has been lacking since. We report a systematic and transparent derivation of the torque between two media with both electric and magnetic birefringence. Our approach, based on an eigenmode decomposition of Maxwell's equations, generalizes Barash's result for electrically birefringent materials, and can be generalized to a wide range of anisotropic materials and finite thickness effects.

Cite

@article{arxiv.1903.09765,
  title  = {Maxwell Eigenmode approach to the Casimir-Lifshitz Torque},
  author = {Wijnand Broer and John Yuh Han Liow and Bing-Sui Lu},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.09765},
  year   = {2019}
}

Comments

20 pages and 2 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-23T08:16:55.589Z