Experimental Investigation of the Casimir Force beyond the Proximity-Force Approximation

Krause, D. E.; Decca, R. S.; López, D.; Fischbach, Ephraim

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.98.050403

Cited by 147 publications

(161 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…is compatible with the experimental bound obtained in [44] (see [43]) whereas β perf G lies outside this bound (see also [59]). …”

Section: The Lateral Casimir Force Between Corrugated Platessupporting

confidence: 78%

“…Using these results, it is possible to compare the theoretical evaluations to the experimental study of PFA in the plane-sphere geometry [44]. In this experiment, the force gradient is measured for various radii of the sphere and the results are used to obtain a constraint |β G | < 0.4 on the slope at origin β G of the function…”

Section: The Lateral Casimir Force Between Corrugated Platesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Answers to these questions can only be obtained by pushing the theory beyond the PFA, which has been done in the past few years (see references in [38-42]). In fact, it is only very recently that these calculations have been done with plane and spherical metallic plates coupled to electromagnetic vacuum [43], thus opening the way to a comparison with experimental studies of PFA in the plane-sphere geometry [44].Another specific geometry of great interest is that of surfaces with periodic corrugations. As lateral translation symmetry is broken, the Casimir force contains a lateral component which is smaller than the normal one, but has nevertheless been measured in dedicated experiments [45].…”

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confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

The Scattering Approach to the Casimir Force

Reynaud

Canaguier-Durand

Messina

et al. 2010

Quantum Field Theory Under the Influence of External Conditions (QFEXT09)

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We present the scattering approach which is nowadays the best tool for describing the Casimir force in realistic experimental configurations. After reminders on the simple geometries of 1d space and specular scatterers in 3d space, we discuss the case of stationary arbitrarily shaped mirrors in electromagnetic vacuum. We then review specific calculations based on the scattering approach, dealing for example with the forces or torques between nanostructured surfaces and with the force between a plane and a sphere. In these various cases, we account for the material dependence of the forces, and show that the geometry dependence goes beyond the trivial Proximity Force Approximation often used for discussing experiments. The many facets of the Casimir effectThe Casimir effect [1] is a jewel with many facets. First, it is an observable effect of vacuum fluctuations in the mesoscopic world, which deserves careful attention as a crucial prediction of quantum field theory [2][3][4][5][6][7].Then, it is also a fascinating interface between quantum field theory and other important aspects of fundamental physics. It has connections with the puzzles of gravitational physics through the problem of vacuum energy [8,9] as well as with the principle of relativity of motion through the dynamical Casimir-like effects [10][11][12]. Effects beyond the Proximity Force Approximation also make apparent the extremely rich interplay of vacuum energy with geometry (references and more discussions below).Casimir physics also plays an important role in the tests of gravity at sub-millimeter ranges [13,14] Finally, the Casimir force and closely related Van der Waals force are dominant at micron or sub-micron distances, which entails that they have strong connections with various important domains, such as atomic and molecular physics, condensed matter and surface physics, chemical and biological physics, micro-and nano-technology [20]. Comparison of the Casimir force measurements with theoryIn short-range gravity tests, the new force would appear as a difference between the experimental result F exp and theoretical prediction F th . This implies that F th and F exp have to be assessed independently from each other and should forbid anyone to use theory-experiment comparison for proving (or disproving) some specific experimental result or theoretical model.Casimir calculated the force between a pair of perfectly smooth, flat and parallel plates in the limit of zero temperature and perfect reflection. He found universal expressions for the force F Cas and energy E Caswith L the distance, A the area, c the speed of light and the Planck constant. This universality is explained by the saturation of the optical response of perfect mirrors which reflect 100% (no less, no more) of the incoming fields. Clearly, this idealization does not correspond to any real mirror. In fact, the effect of imperfect reflection is large in most experiments, and a precise knowledge of its frequency dependence is essential for obtaining a reliable theoretical predict...

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“…is compatible with the experimental bound obtained in [44] (see [43]) whereas β perf G lies outside this bound (see also [59]). …”

Section: The Lateral Casimir Force Between Corrugated Platessupporting

confidence: 78%

Section: The Lateral Casimir Force Between Corrugated Platesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The Scattering Approach to the Casimir Force

Reynaud

Canaguier-Durand

Messina

et al. 2010

Quantum Field Theory Under the Influence of External Conditions (QFEXT09)

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“…Beyond being merely an inconsequential redefinition of the ground state energy, it was shown by Casimir [1] that changes in the zero-point energy can lead to observable forces between uncharged conducting plates. Going beyond simple planar geometries, recent developments in nanotechnology [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] have stimulated intense efforts to understand Casimir interactions between conducting objects of arbitrary shape [11,12].Zero-point fluctuations of the electromagnetic field constitute only one example of a much broader class of phenomena. Essentially any medium whose fluctuations display long-range correlations, e.g., media with a continuously broken symmetry and associated Goldstone mode(s) [13], induce long-range interactions between perturbing objects that modify the spectrum of fluctuations.…”

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confidence: 99%

Phonon-Mediated Casimir Interaction between Mobile Impurities in One-Dimensional Quantum Liquids

Schecter

Kamenev

2014

Phys. Rev. Lett.

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Virtual phonons of a quantum liquid scatter off impurities and mediate a long-range interaction, analogous to the Casimir effect. In one dimension the effect is universal and the induced interaction decays as 1/r 3 , much slower than the van der Waals interaction ∼ 1/r 6 , where r is the impurity separation. The sign of the effect is characterized by the product of impurity-phonon scattering amplitudes, which take a universal form and have been seen to vanish for several integrable impurity models. Thus, if the impurity parameters can be independently tuned to lie on opposite sides of such integrable points, one can observe an attractive interaction turned into a repulsive one.PACS numbers: 67.10. Jn, 67.85.Pq, 42.50.Lc, 03.75.Kk The concept of zero-point energy has fascinated minds ever since the inception of quantum mechanics. Beyond being merely an inconsequential redefinition of the ground state energy, it was shown by Casimir [1] that changes in the zero-point energy can lead to observable forces between uncharged conducting plates. Going beyond simple planar geometries, recent developments in nanotechnology [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] have stimulated intense efforts to understand Casimir interactions between conducting objects of arbitrary shape [11,12].Zero-point fluctuations of the electromagnetic field constitute only one example of a much broader class of phenomena. Essentially any medium whose fluctuations display long-range correlations, e.g., media with a continuously broken symmetry and associated Goldstone mode(s) [13], induce long-range interactions between perturbing objects that modify the spectrum of fluctuations. A well-known example of such media is a superfluid whose Goldstone mode is the quantized sound mode or phonon. Although 4 He was the first system to exhibit the remarkable properties of superfluidity, recent advances in ultracold atom trapping and manipulation [14] have lead to an unprecedented ability to study ultraclean bosonic or fermionic superfluids subject to tunable spatial dimensionality, lattice configuration and interaction strength.Perturbing objects or impurities can be controllably introduced by transferring a fraction of atoms into a different hyperfine state [15][16][17], or by admixing a different atomic species [18][19][20][21]. As we show, such impurities immersed in an interacting cold atom environment is a particularly appealing setup. It gives rise to a long-range interaction, which we hereafter denote as the Casimir interaction, due to scattering of virtual phonons, the same mechanism lying at the heart of the analogous photoninduced Casimir effect. In addition, the cold-atom analog of the interaction has the advantage of being continuously tunable both in magnitude and in sign, a task which is hardly achievable in a linear electromagnetic medium [22].In most studies of Casimir interactions the analysis is restricted to static configurations of objects or bounding surfaces. The impurities in quantum liquids are typically free to propagate under the influence...

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“…Much theoretical effort has been expended in the last two years in advancing more precise methods of calculating the Casimir force between a sphere and a plate [29][30][31]. Unambiguous observation of these effects would require precision better than 0.1% for the short distances at which AFM and MEMS devices have been applied [19][20][21][22][32][33][34][35]. Another important experimental configuration of the Casimir force between a cylinder and Figure 1: Schematic of setup used.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Experimental procedures for precision measurements of the Casimir force with an atomic force microscope

Chiu¹,

Chang²,

Castillo-Garza³

et al. 2008

J. Phys. A: Math. Theor.

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Abstract. Experimental methods and procedures required for precision measurements of the Casimir force are presented. In particular, the best practices for obtaining stable cantilevers, calibration of the cantilever, correction of thermal and mechanical drift, measuring the contact separation and the roughness are discussed. IntroductionThe role of the quantum vacuum and its modification by boundaries, generally referred to as the Casimir effect [1-6] is finding ever increasing applications in fields extending from cosmology to nanotechnology. In fundamental physics the Casimir force has been used for setting limits on the existence of extra dimensions and forces outside the standard model [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15]. As the Casimir force dominates the interaction at separation distances less than 100 nm, its precision measurement is an effective probe of new physics at short distance scales. An interesting feature of the Casimir force is its strong material and geometry dependence. Theoretically the Casimir force can even be made repulsive through a judicious choice of materials [2,16] or boundary shape [3][4][5][6]. The significant role of the Casimir force has also been realized in nanotechnology, where operating surfaces in micromachines are separated by distances less than 1 micron [17,18]. Given the trend towards decreasing dimensions in nanotechnology, it is very conceivable that in the near future the distance scales will drop below 100nm. In this case, the Casimir force will have an overwhelming influence on both the design and function of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

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Experimental Investigation of the Casimir Force beyond the Proximity-Force Approximation

Cited by 147 publications

References 33 publications

The Scattering Approach to the Casimir Force

The Scattering Approach to the Casimir Force

Phonon-Mediated Casimir Interaction between Mobile Impurities in One-Dimensional Quantum Liquids

Experimental procedures for precision measurements of the Casimir force with an atomic force microscope

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