10 Facts About Casimir effect

In quantum field theory, the Casimir effect is a physical force acting on the macroscopic boundaries of a confined space which arises from the quantum fluctuations of the field.

Casimir effect can be understood by the idea that the presence of macroscopic material interfaces, such as conducting metals and dielectrics, alters the vacuum expectation value of the energy of the second-quantized electromagnetic field.

In modern theoretical physics, the Casimir effect plays an important role in the chiral bag model of the nucleon; in applied physics it is significant in some aspects of emerging microtechnologies and nanotechnologies.

Experiments before 1997 had observed the force qualitatively, and indirect validation of the predicted Casimir effect energy had been made by measuring the thickness of liquid helium films.

Causes of the Casimir effect are described by quantum field theory, which states that all of the various fundamental fields, such as the electromagnetic field, must be quantized at each and every point in space.

Related searches

Casimir effect's observation was that the second-quantized quantum electromagnetic field, in the presence of bulk bodies such as metals or dielectrics, must obey the same boundary conditions that the classical electromagnetic field must obey.

Casimir effect was measured more accurately in 1997 by Steve K Lamoreaux of Los Alamos National Laboratory, and by Umar Mohideen and Anushree Roy of the University of California, Riverside.

Casimir effect can be computed using the mathematical mechanisms of functional integrals of quantum field theory, although such calculations are considerably more abstract, and thus difficult to comprehend.

Dynamical Casimir effect is the production of particles and energy from an accelerated moving mirror.

An experimental demonstration of the Casimir effect-based repulsion predicted by Lifshitz was carried out by Munday et al.