We compute the Casimir interaction between a plane and a sphere, the configuration employed in the most precise experiments. The scattering formula is developed by taking a suitably chosen plane-wave and multipole basis and is valid for arbitrary values of the sphere radius, inter-plate distance, temperature and arbitrary dielectric functions for both sphere and plate. Our analytical and numerical results for metallic surfaces show a non-trivial interplay between the effects of curvature, temperature, finite conductivity and dissipation.
@article{arxiv.1005.4294,
title = {Thermal Casimir effect for Drude metals in the plane-sphere geometry},
author = {Antoine Canaguier-Durand and Paulo A. Maia Neto and Astrid Lambrecht and Serge Reynaud},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1005.4294},
year = {2014}
}