Fluctuation-induced attraction of vortices in anisotropic superconductors

We study the fluctuation-induced attraction of vortices for continuous anisotropic superconductors by using quantum statistical physics. In the low temperature or quantum limit, only the low-lying modes are relevant, the induced short-range attractive potential is proportional to (k_BT)³K₁(ΓR/λ), while in high temperature or classical limit, the induced attractive potential reduced to long-range van der Waals type k_BT/R⁴ for two vortices separated by a distance R.     

Fluctuation-induced casimir forces in granular fluids

We numerically investigate the behavior of driven noncohesive granular media and find that two fixed large intruder particles, immersed in a sea of small particles, experience, in addition to a short-range depletion force, a long-range repulsive force. The observed long-range interaction is fluctuation-induced and we propose a mechanism similar to the Casimir effect that generates it: The hydrodynamic fluctuations are geometrically confined between the intruders, producing an unbalanced renormalized pressure. An estimation based on computing the possible Fourier modes explains the repulsive force and is in qualitative agreement with the simulations.     

Critical Casimir effect in dilute He–He mixture films

Recently, we have found that ⁴He films thin near the lambda point. Based on our measurements, the thinning appears to be caused by the confinement of superfluid order parameter fluctuations in the films. The phenomenon of the thinning is believed to be analogous to the Casimir effect in electromagnetism where the confinement of electromagnetic fluctuations causes the vacuum layer that separates two metal plates to thin. In this paper, we report the result of an experiment extending our previous study to ³He–⁴He mixture films. Thinning is found near the new lambda points and the characteristics of the thinning are similar to that found in pure ⁴He films.     

Repulsive and attractive critical Casimir forces

When confining vacuum fluctuations between two identical walls, the Casimir force manifests itself as a mutual attraction of the walls. When confining concentration fluctuations of a binary liquid mixture, an analogous force should exist near the critical temperature T_C; it is called the critical Casimir force. Here we show experimentally that this purely entropic force can be either attractive or repulsive, depending on the boundary conditions for the fluctuations. For symmetrical boundary conditions an attractive force is found while asymmetrical ones lead to a repulsive force. This is observed directly by confining the fluctuations in a thin wetting film. Depending on the boundary conditions either a thinning or a thickening of the film is observed when T→T_C.     

Critical Casimir forces and anomalous wetting

We present a review of critical Casimir forces in connection with successive experiments on wetting near the critical point of helium mixtures.     

Fluctuation-induced forces between inclusions in a fluid membrane under tension

We develop an exact method to calculate thermal Casimir forces between inclusions of arbitrary shapes and separation, embedded in a fluid membrane whose fluctuations are governed by the combined action of surface tension, bending modulus, and Gaussian rigidity. Each object's shape and mechanical properties enter only through a characteristic matrix, a static analog of the scattering matrix. We calculate the Casimir interaction between two elastic disks embedded in a membrane. In particular, we find that at short separations the interaction is strong and independent of surface tension.     

Repulsive Casimir force between silicon dioxide and superconductor

We present a detailed investigation of the Casimir interaction between the superconductor Bi₂Sr₂CaCu₂O_8+δ (BSCCO) and silicon dioxide with bromobenzene present in between. We found that the dispersion force is repulsive and the magnitude of the force can be changed by varying the thickness of the object and the temperature. The repulsive force would provide a method to deal with stiction problems and provide much significant from the practical point of view. (© 2012 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Physical origin of the expansion of polymer coils in a binary solvent in the vicinity of its demixing critical point

Critical fluctuations are known to induce a collapse of polymer chains in a mixed solvent upon approaching its liquid–liquid critical point, as originally predicted by Brochard and de Gennes. Recently, we have found that closer to the critical point this collapse is followed by a reswelling of the polymer coils well beyond the original dimensions, a phenomenon not predicted by the theory of Brochard and de Gennes. We submit that upon approaching the critical temperature more closely, the correlation length of the critical fluctuations inside the polymer coils can no longer further increase due to the finite size of the coils, resulting in the appearance of large critical Casimir forces that cause a significant expansion of the polymer coils. Eventually, micro-phase separation inside the coils will appear and the coils will reshrink. This entire process takes place while the bulk solution is still in the one-phase region.     

On non‐equilibrium photon distributions in the Casimir effect

The electromagnetic field in a typical geometry of the Casimir effect is described in the Schwinger–Keldysh formalism. The main result is the photon distribution function (Keldysh Green function) in any stationary state of the field. A two‐plate geometry with a sliding interface in local equilibrium is studied in detail, and full agreement with the results of Rytov fluctuation electrodynamics is found.     

Particle Creation in the Early Friedmann Universe and the Origination of Space-time

Results on particle creation in the early Friedmann Universe, showing the connection of appearance of particles in it with the geometrical property of causal disconnectedness are discussed, and the possibility of entropy creation is analysed. Origination of space-time itself due to Boole-ization of some non-Boolean lattice of properties of the quantum system leading to open space where all potentialities of the quantum system are realized is discussed.     

Number of particle creation and decoherence in the nonideal dynamical Casimir effect at finite temperature

In this work we investigate the dynamical Casimir effect in a nonideal cavity by deriving an effective Hamiltonian. We first compute a general expression for the average number of particle creation, applicable for any law of motion of the cavity boundary, under the only restriction of small velocities. We also compute a general expression for the linear entropy of an arbitrary state prepared in a selected mode, also applicable for any law of motion of a slow moving boundary. As an application of our results we have analyzed both the average number of particle creation and linear entropy within a particular oscillatory motion of the cavity boundary. On the basis of these expressions we develop a comprehensive analysis of the resonances in the number of particle creation in the nonideal dynamical Casimir effect. We also demonstrate the occurrence of resonances in the loss of purity of the initial state and estimate the decoherence times associated with these resonances. Since our results were obtained in the framework of the perturbation theory, they are restricted, under resonant conditions, to a short-time approximation.     

Casimir force in dense confined electrolytes

ABSTRACT

Understanding the force between charged surfaces immersed in an electrolyte solution is a classic problem in soft matter and liquid-state theory. Recent experiments showed that the force decays exponentially but the characteristic decay length in a concentrated electrolyte is significantly larger than what liquid-state theories predict based on analysing correlation functions in the bulk electrolyte. Inspired by the classical Casimir effect, we consider an additional mechanism for force generation, namely the confinement of density fluctuations in the electrolyte by the walls. We show analytically within the random phase approximation, which assumes the ions to be point charges, that this fluctuation-induced force is attractive and also decays exponentially, albeit with a decay length that is half of the bulk correlation length. These predictions change dramatically when excluded volume effects are accounted for within the mean spherical approximation. At high ion concentrations the Casimir force is found to be exponentially damped oscillatory as a function of the distance between the confining surfaces. Our analysis does not resolve the riddle of the anomalously long screening length observed in experiments, but suggests that the Casimir force due to mode restriction in density fluctuations could be an hitherto under-appreciated source of surface–surface interaction.     

Casimir Effect at Finite Temperature in the Presence of One Fractal Extra Compactified Dimension

We discuss the Casimir effect for massless scalar fields subject to the Dirichlet boundary conditions on the parallel plates at finite temperature in the presence of one fractal extra compactified dimension. We obtain the Casimir energy density with the help of the regularization of multiple zeta function with one arbitrary exponent and further the renormalized Casimir energy density involving the thermal corrections. It is found that when the temperature is sufficiently high, the sign of the Casimir energy remains negative no matter how great the scale dimension δ is within its allowed region. We derive and calculate the Casimir force between the parallel plates affected by the fractal additional compactified dimension and surrounding temperature. The stronger thermal influence leads the force to be stronger. The nature of the Casimir force keeps attractive.     

卡西米尔力

量子电动力学中的卡西米尔力是真空零点能的体现.广义的卡西米尔力则依赖于涨落介质的类型广泛地出现于物理中,包括量子,临界,戈德斯通模,以及非平衡卡西米尔力.长程关联的涨落介质和约束是产生卡西米尔力的两个条件.本文通过回顾卡西米尔物理的发展,讨论了不同类型的卡西米尔力,几种正规化方法,并对卡西米尔物理的进一步发展做了展望.     

Casimir Effect at Finite Temperature in the Presence of One Fractal Extra Compactified Dimension

We discuss the Casimir effect for massless scalar fields subject to the Dirichlet boundary conditions on the parallel plates at finite temperature in the presence of one fractal extra compactified dimension. We obtain the Casimir energy density with the help of the regularization of multiple zeta function with one arbitrary exponent and further the renormalized Casimir energy density involving the thermal corrections. It is found that when the temperature is sufficiently high, the sign of the Casimir energy remains negative no matter how great the scale dimension δ is within its allowed region. We derive and calculate the Casimir force between the parallel plates affected by the fractal additional compactified dimension and surrounding temperature. The stronger thermal influence leads the force to be stronger. The nature of the Casimir force keeps attractive.     

Thermal Casimir versus Casimir-Polder forces: equilibrium and nonequilibrium forces

We critically discuss whether and under what conditions Lifshitz theory may be used to describe thermal Casimir-Polder forces on atoms or molecules. An exact treatment of the atom-field coupling reveals that for a ground-state atom (molecule), terms associated with virtual-photon absorption lead to a deviation from the traditional Lifshitz result; they are identified as a signature of nonequilibrium dynamics. Even the equilibrium force on a thermalized atom (molecule) may be overestimated when using the ground-state polarizability instead of its thermal counterpart.     

Generating large steady-state optomechanical entanglement by the action of Casimir force

In this paper,we study an optomechanical device consisting of a Fabry-P′erot cavity with two dielectric nanospheres trapped near the cavity mirrors by an external driving laser.In the condition where the distances between the nanospheres and cavity mirrors are small enough,the Casimir force helps the optomechanical coupling to induce a steady-state optomechanical entanglement of the mechanical and optical modes in a certain regime of parameters.We investigate in detail the dependence of the steadystate optomechanical entanglement on external control parameters of the system,i.e.,the effective detuning,the pump powers of the cavity,the cavity decay rate and the wavelength of the driving field.It is found that the large steady-state optomechanical entanglement,i.e.EN=5.76,can be generated with experimentally feasible parameters,i.e.the pump power P=18.2μW,the cavity decay rateκ=0.5 MHz and the wavelength of the laserλL=1064 nm,which should be checked by optical measurement.