https://doi.org/10.1007/s100530050041
Casimir force between metallic mirrors
Laboratoire Kastler Brossel (Unité de l'École Normale
Supérieure, de l'Université Pierre et Marie Curie, et du Centre National
de la Recherche Scientifique.) , Campus Jussieu, case 74,
75252 Paris Cedex 05, France
Received:
30
July
1999
Published online: 15 March 2000
We study the influence of finite conductivity of metals on the Casimir effect. We put the emphasis on explicit theoretical evaluations which can help comparing experimental results with theory. The reduction of the Casimir force is evaluated for plane metallic plates. The reduction of the Casimir energy in the same configuration is also calculated. It can be used to infer the reduction of the force in the plane-sphere geometry through the "proximity theorem". Frequency dependent dielectric response functions of the metals are represented either by the simple plasma model or, more accurately, by using the optical data known for the metals used in recent experiments, that is Al, Au and Cu. In the two latter cases, the results obtained here differ significantly from those published recently.
PACS: 03.70.+k – Theory of quantized fields / 12.20.Ds – Specific calculations / 42.50.Lc – Quantum fluctuations, quantum noise, and quantum jumps
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag, 2000