Repulsive Casimir forces
Quantum Physics
2009-11-07 v1 Statistical Mechanics
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
We discuss repulsive Casimir forces between dielectric materials with non trivial magnetic susceptibility. It is shown that considerations based on naive pair-wise summation of Van der Waals and Casimir Polder forces may not only give an incorrect estimate of the magnitude of the total Casimir force, but even the wrong sign of the force when materials with high dielectric and magnetic response are involved. Indeed repulsive Casimir forces may be found in a large range of parameters, and we suggest that the effect may be realized in known materials. The phenomenon of repulsive Casimir forces may be of importance both for experimental study and for nanomachinery applications.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0202114,
title = {Repulsive Casimir forces},
author = {O. Kenneth and I. Klich and A. Mann and M. Revzen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0202114},
year = {2009}
}