Related papers: Pseudo-Casimir force in confined nematic polymers
The nematic ordering in semiflexible polymers with contour length $L$ exceeding their persistence length $\ell_p$ is described by a confinement of the polymers in a cylinder of radius $r_{eff}$ much larger than the radius $r_\rho$, expected…
Quantum and thermal fluctuations are fundamental to a plethora of phenomena within quantum optics, including the Casimir effect that acts between closely separated surfaces typically found in MEMS and NEMS devices. Particularly promising…
Fluctuation-induced interactions between anisotropic objects immersed in a nematic liquid crystal are shown to depend on the relative orientation of these objects. The resulting long-range ``Casimir'' torques are explicitely calculated for…
Loops undergoing thermal fluctuations are prevalent in nature. Ring-like or cross-linked polymers, cyclic macromolecules, and protein-mediated DNA loops all belong to this category. Stability of these molecules are generally described in…
We consider the quantum fluctuations of the Casimir-Polder force between a neutral atom and a perfectly conducting wall in the ground state of the system. In order to obtain the atom-wall force fluctuation we first define an operator…
We propose a definitive test of whether plates involved in Casimir experiments should be modeled with ballistic or diffusive electrons--a prominent controversy highlighted by a number of conflicting experiments. The unambiguous test we…
The force experienced by objects embedded in a correlated medium undergoing thermal fluctuations--the so-called fluctuation--induced force--is actually itself a fluctuating quantity. We compute the corresponding probability distribution and…
After a review of the standard calculation of the Casimir force between two metallic plates at zero and non-zero temperatures, we present the study of microscopic models to determine the large-distance asymptotic force in the…
Within the frame of macroscopic QED in linear, causal media, we study the radiation force of Casimir-Polder type acting on an atom which is positioned near dispersing and absorbing magnetodielectric bodies and initially prepared in an…
The Casimir force follows from quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field and yields a nonlinear attractive force between closely spaced conductive objects. Measuring the Casimir force in superconducting materials on either side of…
Casimir forces are of fundamental interest because they originate from quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. Apart from controlling the Casimir force via the optical properties of the materials, a number of novel geometries…
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 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…
Among the various kinds of effective forces in soft matter, the spatial range and the direction of the so-called critical Casimir force - which is generated by the enhanced thermal fluctuations close to a continuous phase transition - can…
We show that critical Casimir effects can be accessed through direct simulation of a model binary fluid passing through the demixing transition. We work in the semi grand canonical ensemble, in slab geometry, in which the Casimir force…
The interaction between a polarizable particle and a reflecting wall is examined. A macroscopic approach is adopted in which the averaged force is computed from the Maxwell stress tensor. The particular case of a perfectly reflecting wall…
In soft and condensed matter physics, effective interactions often emerge as a result of the spatial confinement of a fluctuating field. For instance, microscopic particles in a binary liquid mixture are subject to critical Casimir forces…
We introduce a class of models of semiflexible polymers. The latter are characterized by a strong rigidity, the correlation length associated to the gradient-gradient correlations, called the persistence length, being of the same order as…
We theoretically study the Casimir-Polder force on an atom in a arbitrary initial state in a rather general electromagnetic environment wherein the materials may have a nonreciprocal bianisotropic dispersive response. It is shown that under…
The Casimir force between metallic plates made of realistic materials is evaluated for distances in the nanometer range. A spectrum over real frequencies is introduced and shows narrow peaks due to surface resonances (plasmon polaritons or…