Towards Measuring Variations of Casimir Energy by a Superconducting Cavity

Bimonte, Giuseppe; Calloni, E.; Esposito, Giampiero; Milano, L.; Rosa, Luigi

doi:10.1103/physrevlett.94.180402

Cited by 92 publications

(76 citation statements)

References 14 publications

(19 reference statements)

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…[8], is its sensitivity to the contribution from the TE zero mode. This is a controversial issue in the current literature on thermal corrections to the Casimir effect.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Another reason of interest in our superconducting cavities, not discussed in [8], is that their study will help clarifying one of the most debated issues in the current literature on the Casimir effect, i.e. the question of the contribution from the TE zero mode to thermal corrections in real metals, i.e.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In a recent Letter [8] we have found that by realizing a rigid cavity, including a superconducting film, it should be possible to measure directly the variation of Casimir energy accompanying the transition to the normal state of the superconducting film, in an external magnetic field.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Variations of Casimir energy from a superconducting transition

et al. 2005

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We consider a five-layer Casimir cavity, including a thin superconducting film. We show that when the cavity is cooled below the critical temperature for the onset of superconductivity, the sharp variation (in the microwave region) of the reflection coefficient of the film produces a variation in the value of the Casimir energy. Even though the relative variation in the Casimir energy is very small, its magnitude can be comparable to the condensation energy of the superconducting film, and thus causes a significant increase in the value of the critical magnetic field, required to destroy the superconductivity of the film. The proposed scheme might also help clarifying the current controversy about the magnitude of the contribution to Casimir free energy from the TE zero mode, as we find that alternative treatments of this mode strongly affect the shift of critical field.

show abstract

“…[8], is its sensitivity to the contribution from the TE zero mode. This is a controversial issue in the current literature on thermal corrections to the Casimir effect.…”

Section: Conclusion and Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Variations of Casimir energy from a superconducting transition

et al. 2005

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The distance range of dispersion forces extends from several angströms to a few nanometers (the van der Waals regime where the relativistic retardation is not important) and from a few nanometers to a few micrometers (the Casimir regime where the retardation effects contribute more and more as the separation distance increases). The diverse applications of dispersion forces vary from the physics of surface and nanostructures [3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10] to obtaining constraints on the predictions of unification theories of fundamental interactions beyond the Standard Model [11,12,13].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How to modify the van der Waals and Casimir forces without change of the dielectric permittivity

Mohideen

Mostepanenko

2012

J. Phys.: Condens. Matter

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract. We propose a new experiment on measuring the Casimir force and its gradient between an Au-coated sphere and two different plates made of doped semiconductors. The concentrations of charge carriers in the plates are chosen slightly below and above the critical density at which the Mott-Anderson insulator-metal transition occurs. We calculate changes in the Casimir force and the Casimir pressure due to the insulator-metal transition using the standard Lifshitz theory and the phenomenological approach neglecting the contribution of free charge carriers in the dielectric permittivity of insulator materials (this approach was recently supported by the measurement data of several experiments). It is demonstrated that for the special selection of semiconductor materials (S-or Se-doped Si, B-doped diamond) calculation results using both theoretical approaches differ significantly and the predicted effects are easily detectable using the existing laboratory setups. In the case that the prediction of the phenomenological approach is confirmed, this would open opportunities to modify the van der Waals and Casimir forces with almost no change of room temperature dielectric permittivity.

show abstract

“…Just as a repulsive effect would be a signature of some time-reversal symmetry breaking (such as in the case of two quantum Hall plates [12] or topological insulators with gapped surface states [13]), other changes in the Casimir force can be attributed to other material properties. For instance, Bimonte and coauthors showed that one can in principle measure the change in Casimir energy between a normal and superconducting state [14]. Additionally, the critical Casimir effect [15] can be used to characterize the phase transition and probe finite-size scaling [16], while the thermal Casimir effect [17] has been used to probe phase transitions [18].…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Nonanalytic behavior of the Casimir force across a Lifshitz transition in a spin-orbit-coupled material

2014

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We propose the Casimir effect as a general method to observe Lifshitz transitions in electron systems. The concept is demonstrated with a planar spin-orbit coupled semiconductor in a magnetic field. We calculate the Casimir force between two such semiconductors and between the semiconductor and a metal as a function of the Zeeman splitting in the semiconductor. The Zeeman field causes a Fermi pocket in the semiconductor to form or collapse by tuning the system through a topological Lifshitz transition. We find that the Casimir force experiences a kink at the transition point and noticeably different behaviors on either side of the transition. The simplest experimental realization of the proposed effect would involve a metal-coated sphere suspended from a micro-cantilever above a thin layer of InSb (or another semiconductor with large g-factor). Numerical estimates are provided and indicate that the effect is well within experimental reach. FIG. 1. The geometry typically used in experimental measurements of the Casimir force is a gold coated sphere suspended above a planar plate from a cantilever. We consider a lower plate of indium antimonide with an applied magnetic field.takes the schematic formwhere X = X (1+ X ) is the dressed currentcurrent correlation function for plate X while X is the usual current-current correlator derived in linear response theory -a material dependent quantity related to conductivity. It enters the expression in a crucial way, and thus, features in the frequency-dependent conductivity translate to features in the Casimir force. Being able to tune the Casimir force by modifying a material's electromagnetic response would have important applications for precision gravity experiments [7] and applications to nanotechnology [8].From the other direction, and importantly for the subject of this paper, any change of the Casimir force would be an indication of a change in the material's properties. Special geometries [9] and boundary conditions [10] can change the Casimir force to be repulsive, though with symmetric geometries without time-reversal symmetry breaking, one can not escape an attractive effect [11]. Just as a repulsive effect would be a signature of some time-reversal symmetry breaking (such as in the case of two quantum Hall plates [12] or topological insulators with gapped surface states [13]), other changes in the Casimir force can be attributed to other material properties. For instance, Bimonte and coauthors showed that one can in principle measure the change in Casimir energy between a normal and superconducting state [14]. Additionally, the critical Casimir effect [15] can be used to characterize the phase transition and probe finite-size scaling [16], while the thermal Casimir effect [17] has been used to probe phase transitions [18].

show abstract

Towards Measuring Variations of Casimir Energy by a Superconducting Cavity

Cited by 92 publications

References 14 publications

Variations of Casimir energy from a superconducting transition

Variations of Casimir energy from a superconducting transition

How to modify the van der Waals and Casimir forces without change of the dielectric permittivity

Nonanalytic behavior of the Casimir force across a Lifshitz transition in a spin-orbit-coupled material

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About