Thermal and dissipative effects in Casimir physics

M BROWN-HAYES, J H BROWNELL, D A R DALVIT, W J KIM,A LAMBRECHT, F C LOMBARDO, F D MAZZITELLI, S M MIDDLEMAN,V V NESVIZHEVSKY, R ONOFRIO,AND S REYNAUD

JOURNAL OF PHYSICS. A - MATHEMATICAL AND GENERAL

IOP

Lugar: London; Año: 2006 vol. 39 p. 6195 - 6208

0305-4470

We report on current efforts to detect the thermal and dissipative contributionsto the Casimir force. For the thermal component, two experiments are inprogress at Dartmouth and at the Institute Laue Langevin in Grenoble. Thefirst experiment will seek to detect the Casimir force at the largest explorabledistance using a cylinder-plane geometry which offers various advantageswith respect to both sphere-plane and parallel-plane geometries. In thesecond experiment, the Casimir force in the parallel-plane configuration ismeasured with a dedicated torsional balance, up to 10 µm. Parallelism oflarge surfaces, critical for this configuration, is maintained through the useof inclinometer technology already implemented at Grenoble for the studyof gravitationally bound states of ultracold neutrons. For the dissipativecomponent of the Casimir force, we discuss detection techniques based upon theuse of hyperfine spectroscopy of ultracold atoms and Rydberg atoms. Althoughquite challenging, this triad of experimental efforts, if successful, will give us abetter knowledge of the interplay between quantum and thermal fluctuations ofthe electromagnetic field and of the nature of dissipation induced by the motionof objects in a quantum vacuum.