Related papers: Fluctuation-Induced Interactions Between Ellipsoid…
Unwanted stiction in micro- and nanomechanical (NEMS/MEMS) systems due to dispersion (van der Waals, or Casimir) forces is a significant hurdle in the fabrication of systems with moving parts on these length scales. Introducing a suitably…
Randomly charged net-neutral dielectric slabs are shown to interact across a featureless dielectric continuum with long-range electrostatic forces that scale with the statistical variance of their quenched random charge distribution and…
Vacuum fluctuations provide a fundamental source of dissipation for systems coupled to quantum fields by radiation pressure. In the dynamical Casimir effect, accelerating neutral bodies in free space give rise to the emission of real…
Wetting phenomena, molecular protrusions of lipid bilayers and membrane stacks under lateral tension provide physical examples for interacting surfaces with tension. Such surfaces are studied theoretically using functional renormalization…
Dispersion forces between neutral material bodies are due to fluctuations of the polarization of the bodies. For bodies in equilibrium these forces are often referred to as Casimir-Lifshitz forces. For bodies in relative motion, in addition…
Measurements of the surface diffusivity of colloidal spheres translating along a vapor/liquid inter- face show an unexpected decrease in diffusivity, or increase in surface drag (from the Stokes-Einstein relation) when the particles situate…
We investigate the pseudo-Casimir force acting between two charged surfaces confining a single polyelectrolyte chain with opposite charge. We expand the exact free energy to the second order in the local electrostatic field as well as the…
Mutual Coulomb interactions between electrons lead to a plethora of interesting physical and chemical effects, especially if those interactions involve many fluctuating electrons over large spatial scales. Here, we identify and study in…
Amorphous media at finite temperatures, be them liquids, colloids or glasses, are made of interacting particles that move chaotically due to thermal energy, colliding and scattering continuously off each other. When the average…
Interfacial friction in nanofluidic systems can arise from fluctuation-induced coupling between liquid charge fluctuations and the internal excitations of the confining solid. Here, we develop a microscopic theory of exciton-mediated…
We investigate the forces exerted on embedded inclusions by a fluid medium with long-range correlations, described by an effective scalar field theory. Such forces are the basis for the medium-mediated Casimir-like force. To study these…
We study the thermal fluctuation induced interactions between two surfaces containing Brownian charges which are held at different temperatures. Using a dynamical form of Debye-H\"uckel theory implemented within the stochastic equation for…
We use scaling arguments and coarse grained Monte Carlo simulations to study the fluctuation mediated interactions between a pair of adhesion sites of a bilayer membrane and a supporting surface. We find that the potential of mean force is…
We consider the interaction between two rods embedded in a fluctuating surface. The modification of fluctuations by the rods leads to an attractive long-range interaction between them. We consider fluctuations governed by either surface…
We consider a nematic liquid crystal confined by two parallel planar interfaces, one being laterally homogeneous and the other provided by a substrate endowed with a periodic chemical stripe pattern. Based on continuum theory we analyze the…
Casimir friction between a polarizable particle and a semi-infinite space is a delicate physical phenomenon, as it concerns the interaction between a microscopic quantum particle and a semi-infinite reservoir. Not unexpectedly, results…
One of the most noticeable collective motion of non-cohesive granular matter is clustering under certain conditions. In particular, when a quasi-two-dimensional monolayer of mono-disperse non-cohesive particles is vertically vibrated, a…
The Casimir interaction is induced by electromagnetic fluctuations between objects and it is strongly dependent upon the electronic and optical properties of the materials making up the objects. Here we investigate this ubiquitous…
Hypothesis: The collective dynamics and self-assembly of colloids floating at a fluid/fluid interface is a balance between deterministic lateral interaction forces, viscous resistance to colloid motion along the surface and thermal…
We calculate the van der Waals friction between two semi-infinite solids in normal relative motion and find a drastic difference in comparison with the parallel relative motion. The case of the good conductors is investigated in details…