Revisiting Vacuum Energy in Compact Spacetimes

We revisit the calculation of vacuum energy density in compact spacetimes. For the general case of $k$ compact spatial dimensions in $p+k$ dimensional Minkowski spacetime, we calculate the Casimir force on a piston placed in the presence of external electromagnetic fields. We observe that while the presence of a strong external magnetic field reduces the intensity of the Casimir force, the presence of an electric field enhances it instead. We discuss various physical cases, and also derive the particle production rate in the presence of such external fields in compact spacetimes. We observe that the pair production rate is enhanced in the presence of a piston.