Towards measuring variations of Casimir energy by a superconducting cavity
Abstract
We consider a Casimir cavity, one plate of which is a thin superconducting film. We show that when the cavity is cooled below the critical temperature for the onset of superconductivity, the sharp variation (in the far infrared) of the reflection coefficient of the film engenders a variation in the value of the Casimir energy. Even though the relative variation in the Casimir energy is very small, its magnitude can be comparable to the condensation energy of the superconducting film, and this gives rise to a number of testable effects, including a significant increase in the value of the critical magnetic field, required to destroy the superconductivity of the film. The theoretical ground is therefore prepared for the first experiment ever aimed at measuring variations of the Casimir energy itself.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.quant-ph/0406188,
title = {Towards measuring variations of Casimir energy by a superconducting cavity},
author = {Giuseppe Bimonte and Enrico Calloni and Giampiero Esposito and Leopoldo Milano and Luigi Rosa},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:quant-ph/0406188},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
4 pages, 2 figures. Substantial improvement of presentation, choice of a more convenient cavity geometry. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett