Multiple Scattering Expansion for Dielectric Media: Casimir Effect.

Recent measurements of Casimir forces have provided evidence of an intricate modification of quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field in complex geometries. Here we introduce a multiple scattering description for Casimir interactions between bodies of arbitrary shape and material composition, admitting an expansion as a sequence of inter- and intra-body wave scatterings. Interactions in complex geometries can be computed within the current experimental resolution from typically a few wave scatterings, notably without any a priori knowledge of the scattering amplitudes of the bodies.

A robust superconducting setup to probe the thermal Casimir effect.

We describe a superconducting Casimir apparatus inspired by a recently proposed setup involving magnetic surfaces (Bimonte G 2014 Phys. Rev. Lett.

Interplay of curvature and temperature in the Casimir-Polder interaction.

We study the Casimir-Polder interaction at finite temperatures between a polarizable small, anisotropic particle and a non-planar surface using a derivative expansion. We obtain the leading and the next-to-leading curvature corrections to the interaction for low and high temperatures. Explicit results are provided for the retarded limit in the presence of a perfectly conducting surface.

Apparatus for measuring the thermal Casimir force at large distances.

We describe a Casimir apparatus based on a differential force measurement between a Au-coated sphere and a planar slab divided in two regions, one of which is made of high-resistivity (dielectric) Si, and the other of Au. The crucial feature of the setup is a semitransparent plane parallel conducting overlayer, covering both regions. The setup offers two important advantages over existing Casimir setups.

Hide it to see it better: a robust setup to probe the thermal Casimir effect.

We describe a Casimir setup consisting of two aligned sinusoidally corrugated Ni surfaces, one of which is "hidden" by a thin opaque layer of gold with a flat exposed surface. The gold layer acts as a low-pass filter that allows for a clean observation of the controversial thermal Casimir force between the corrugations, with currently available Casimir apparatuses. The proposed scheme of measurement, based on the phase-dependent modulation of the Casimir force, requires no electrostatic calibrations of the apparatus, and is unaffected by uncertainties in the knowledge of the optical properties of the surfaces.

Exact results for classical Casimir interactions: Dirichlet and Drude model in the sphere-sphere and sphere-plane geometry.

Analytic expressions that describe Casimir interactions over the entire range of separations have been limited to planar surfaces. Here we derive analytic expressions for the classical or high-temperature limit of Casimir interactions between two spheres (interior and exterior configurations), including the sphere-plane geometry as a special case, using bispherical coordinates. We consider both Dirichlet boundary conditions and metallic boundary conditions described by the Drude model.

A theory of electromagnetic fluctuations for metallic surfaces and van der waals interactions between metallic bodies.

A new general expression is derived for the fluctuating electromagnetic field outside a metal surface in terms of its surface impedance. It provides a generalization to real metals of Lifshitz theory of molecular interactions between dielectric solids. The theory is used to compute the radiative heat transfer between two parallel metal surfaces at different temperatures.

Comment on "Low-frequency character of the Casimir force between metallic films".

In Phys. Rev. E 70, 047102 (2004), Torgerson and Lamoreaux investigated for the first time the real-frequency spectrum of the finite temperature correction to the Casimir force, for metallic plates of finite conductivity.

Towards measuring variations of Casimir energy by a superconducting cavity.

We consider a Casimir cavity, one plate of which is 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 far infrared) of the reflection coefficient of the film engenders 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 this gives rise to a number of testable effects, including a significant increase in the value of the critical magnetic field, required to destroy the superconductivity of the film.