Casimir apparatuses in a weak gravitational field
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Casimir apparatuses in a weak gravitational field. / Bimonte, Giuseppe; Calloni, Enrico; Esposito, Giampiero; Napolitano, George Maria; Rosa, Luigi.
Proceedings of 4th International Sakharov Conference on Physics, Moscow, Russia Federation, 18-23 May 2009. 2009.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Article in proceedings › Research
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TY - GEN
T1 - Casimir apparatuses in a weak gravitational field
AU - Bimonte, Giuseppe
AU - Calloni, Enrico
AU - Esposito, Giampiero
AU - Napolitano, George Maria
AU - Rosa, Luigi
PY - 2009
Y1 - 2009
N2 - We review and assess a part of the recent work on Casimir apparatuses in the weak gravitational field of the Earth. For a free, real massless scalar field subject to Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions on the parallel plates, the resulting regularized and renormalized energy-momentum tensor is covariantly conserved, while the trace anomaly vanishes if the massless field is conformally coupled to gravity. Conformal coupling also ensures a finite Casimir energy and finite values of the pressure upon parallel plates. These results have been extended to an electromagnetic field subject to perfect conductor (hence idealized) boundary conditions on parallel plates, by various authors. The regularized and renormalized energy-momentum tensor has beene valuated up to second order in the gravity acceleration. In both the scalar and the electromagnetic case, studied to first order in the gravity acceleration, the theory predicts a tiny force in the upwards direction acting on the apparatus. This effect is conceptually very interesting, since it means that Casimir energy is indeed expected to gravitate, although the magnitude of he expected force makes it necessary to overcome very severe signal-modulation problems.
AB - We review and assess a part of the recent work on Casimir apparatuses in the weak gravitational field of the Earth. For a free, real massless scalar field subject to Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions on the parallel plates, the resulting regularized and renormalized energy-momentum tensor is covariantly conserved, while the trace anomaly vanishes if the massless field is conformally coupled to gravity. Conformal coupling also ensures a finite Casimir energy and finite values of the pressure upon parallel plates. These results have been extended to an electromagnetic field subject to perfect conductor (hence idealized) boundary conditions on parallel plates, by various authors. The regularized and renormalized energy-momentum tensor has beene valuated up to second order in the gravity acceleration. In both the scalar and the electromagnetic case, studied to first order in the gravity acceleration, the theory predicts a tiny force in the upwards direction acting on the apparatus. This effect is conceptually very interesting, since it means that Casimir energy is indeed expected to gravitate, although the magnitude of he expected force makes it necessary to overcome very severe signal-modulation problems.
KW - hep-th
M3 - Article in proceedings
BT - Proceedings of 4th International Sakharov Conference on Physics, Moscow, Russia Federation, 18-23 May 2009
ER -
ID: 32631539