Related papers: Vacuum energy density and pressure near a soft wal…
In the study of quantum vacuum energy and the Casimir effect, it is desirable to model the conductor by a potential of the form $V(z)=z^\alpha$. This "soft wall" model was proposed so as to avoid the violation of the principle of virtual…
The idealized theory of quantum vacuum energy density is a beautiful application of the spectral theory of differential operators with boundary conditions, but its conclusions are physically unacceptable. A more plausible model of a…
In a continuing effort to understand divergences which occur when quantum fields are confined by bounding surfaces, we investigate local energy densities (and the local energy-momentum tensor) in the vicinity of a wall. In this paper,…
We investigate the vacuum properties of a massless scalar field theory in constrained spatial geometry, namely, the instantaneous appearance of a thick Dirichlet boundary inside a one-dimensional (1D) Dirichlet cavity and divides it into…
Vacuum-energy calculations with ideal reflecting boundaries are plagued by boundary divergences, which presumably correspond to real (but finite) physical effects occurring near the boundary. Our working hypothesis is that the stress tensor…
Whightman function, vacuum expectation values of the field square, and the energy-momentum tensor are investigated for a scalar field inside a wedge with and without a coaxial cylindrical boundary. Dirichlet boundary conditions are assumed…
This is the first in a series of papers where we study the dynamics of a bubble wall beyond usual approximations, such as the assumptions of spherical bubbles and infinitely thin walls. In this paper, we consider a vacuum phase transition.…
The imposition of boundary conditions upon a quantized field can lead to singular energy densities on the boundary. We treat the boundaries as quantum mechanical objects with a nonzero position uncertainty, and show that the singular energy…
The regularized vacuum energy (or energy density) of a quantum field subjected to static external conditions is shown to satisfy a certain partial differential equation with respect to two variables, the mass and the "time" (ultraviolet…
Motivated by a desire to understand quantum fluctuation energy densities and stress within a spatially varying dielectric medium, we examine the vacuum expectation value for the stress tensor of a scalar field with arbitrary conformal…
We use analytical calculations and event-driven molecular dynamics simulations to study a small number of hard sphere particles in a spherical cavity. The cavity is taken also as the thermal bath so that the system thermalizes by collisions…
The renormalized energy density of a massless scalar field defined in a D-dimensional flat spacetime is computed in the presence of "soft" and "semihard" boundaries, modeled by some smoothly increasing potential functions. The sign of the…
There are several definitions of energy density in quantum mechanics. These yield expressions that differ locally, but all satisfy a continuity equation and integrate to the value of the expected energy of the system under consideration.…
Wightman function, the vacuum expectation values of the field square and the energy-momentum tensor are investigated for a massive scalar field with general curvature coupling parameter inside a wedge with two coaxial cylindrical…
The quantum vacuum effects are investigated for a massive scalar field with general curvature coupling and obeying the Robin boundary conditions given on two concentric spherical shells with radii $a $ and $b$ in the $D+1$-dimensional…
The vacuum expectation values of the field squared and the energy-momentum tensor are investigated for a scalar field with Dirichlet boundary conditions and for the electromagnetic field inside a wedge with a coaxial cylindrical boundary.…
We quantize a scalar field at finite temperature T in the background of a classical black hole, adopting 't Hooft's ``brick wall'' model with generic mixed boundary conditions at the brick wall boundary. We first focus on the exactly…
We show that a system of a domain wall coupled to a scalar field has static negative energy density at certain distances from the domain wall. This system provides a simple, explicit example of violation of the averaged weak energy…
We revisit the cosmic evolution of the energy density of a quantized free scalar field and assess under what conditions the particle production and classical field approximations reproduce its correct value. Because the unrenormalized…
The expectation values of energy density and pressure of a quantum field inside a wedge-shaped region appear to violate the expected relationship between torque and total energy as a function of angle. In particular, this is true of the…