Casimir effect of massive photons in magnetodielectric media
Year: 2010
Type: preprint
Abstract: We study the Casimir effect due to photons with finite mass in a system of two parallel plates made of real materials, in an arbitrary magnetodielectric background. The plane waves satisfying the Proca equations are classified into transverse modes and longitudinal modes which have different dispersion relations. Transverse modes are further divided into type I and type II corresponding to TE and TM modes in the massless case. For general magnetodielectric media, we argue that the correct boundary conditions are the continuities of Hk,�,A and @xAx, where x is the direction normal to the plates. Whereas there are type I transverse modes that satisfy all the boundary conditions, it is impossible to find type II transverse modes or longitudinal modes that satisfy all the boundary conditions. To circumvent this problem, type II transverse modes and longitudinal modes have to be considered together. We call the contribution to the Casimir energy from type I transverse modes as TE contribution, and the contribution from the combination of type II transverse modes and longitudinal modes as TM contribution. Their massless limits give respectively the TE and TM contributions of the Casimir energy for massless photons. The limits where the plates become perfectly conducting is also discussed in detail. For the special case where the background has unity refractive index, it is shown that the TM contribution to the Casimir energy can be written as a sum of contributions from two different types of modes, corresponding to type 2 discrete modes and type 3 continuum modes discussed by Barton and Dombey [8]. For general background, this splitting does not work.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Language: English
Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1419987231