Related papers: Recent Developments in Quantum Vacuum Energy for C…
We argue that the combination of the principles of quantum theory and general relativity allow for a dynamical energy-momentum space. We discuss the freezing of vacuum energy in such a dynamical energy-momentum space and present a…
A novel version of the electric Aharonov-Bohm effect is proposed where the quantum system which picks up the Aharonov-Bohm phase is confined to a Faraday cage with a time varying, spatially uniform scalar potential. The electric and…
In this paper, we study the Casimir effect in a curved spacetime described by gravitational actions quadratic in the curvature. In particular, we consider the dynamics of a massless scalar field confined between two nearby plates and…
When two or more objects move relative to one another in vacuum, they experience a drag force which, at zero temperature, usually goes under the name of quantum friction. This contactless non-conservative interaction is mediated by the…
We compute for various perturbed conformal field theories the vacuum energies by means of the thermodynamic Bethe ansatz. Depending on the infrared and ultraviolet divergencies of the models, governed by the scaling dimensions of the…
We compute the expectations of the squares of the electric and magnetic fields in the vacuum region outside a half-space filled with a uniform dispersive dielectric. We find a positive energy density of the electromagnetic field which…
The Einstein equation in a semi-classical approximation is applied to a spherical region of the universe, with the stress-energy tensor consisting of the mass density and pressure of the LambdaCDM cosmological model plus an additional…
The vacuum is the lowest energy state of a field in a certain region of space. This definition implies that no particles can be present in the vacuum state. In classical physics, the only features of vacuum are those of its geometry. For…
The lateral Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a corrugated surface should allow one to study experimentally non trivial geometrical effects in quantum vacuum. Here, we derive the theoretical expression of this force in a scattering…
By example of a model with a spatially global scalar field, we show that the energy density of zero-point modes is exponentially suppressed by an average number of field quanta in a finite volume with respect to the energy density in the…
Using functional integral methods, we study the Casimir effect for the case of two infinite parallel plates in the QED vacuum, with (different) perfect electromagnetic boundary conditions applied to both plates. To enforce these boundary…
The shift of atomic energy levels due to hadronic vacuum polarization is evaluated in a semiempirical way for hydrogenlike ions and for muonic hydrogen. A parametric hadronic polarization function obtained from experimental cross sections…
We suggest a new perspective on the Cosmological Constant Problem by scrutinizing its standard formulation. In classical and quantum mechanics without gravity, there is no definition of the zero point of energy. Furthermore, the Casimir…
As the microscopic structure of the deep relativistic quantum vacuum is unknown, a phenomenological approach ($q$-theory) has been proposed to describe the vacuum degrees of freedom and the dynamics of the vacuum energy after the Big Bang.…
Several years ago Schwinger proposed a physical mechanism for sonoluminescence in terms of changes in the properties of the quantum-electrodynamic (QED) vacuum state. This mechanism is most often phrased in terms of changes in the Casimir…
The coupling between a moving ground-state atom and the quantum electromagnetic field is at the origin of several intriguing phenomena ranging from the dynamical Casimir emission of photons to Sagnac-like geometric phase shifts in atom…
The focusing of the vacuum modes of a quantized field by a parabolic mirror is investigated. We use a geometric optics approximation to calculate the energy density and mean squared field averages for scalar and electromagnetic fields near…
By using an Ansatz for the pressure (measured in terms of the bag constant) of the hadronic gas in equilibrium, we have formulated a new bag-type model for the phase transition, i. e. the extended bag model. This allows one to take into…
We consider the Casimir effect for a sphere in front of a plane at finite temperature for scalar and electromagnetic fields and calculate the limiting cases. For small separation we compare the exact results with the corresponding ones…
In this lecture at a school for condensed matter physicists, I begin with basic concepts and tools for investigating phase transitions in quantum field theory. The very different roles of global and gauge symmetries in phase transitions…