2025/01/29 by Kimball A. Milton, Milton, Kimball A., Nima Pourtolami +3
Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Molecular Physics #Cold Atom Physics and Bose-Einstein Condensates #Diamond and Carbon-based Materials Research #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Quantum Physics (quant-ph)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.2501.17793
openalex publication_date 2025/01/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This paper provides an overview of the nonequilibrium fluctuational forces and torques acting on a body either in motion or at rest relative to another body or to the thermal vacuum blackbody radiation. We consider forces and torques beyond the usual static Casimir-Polder and Casimir forces and torques. For a moving body, a retarding force emerges, called quantum or Casimir friction, which in vacuum was first predicted by Einstein and Hopf in 1910. Nonreciprocity may allow a stationary body, out of thermal equilibrium with its environment, to experience a torque. Moreover, if a stationary reciprocal body is not in thermal equilibrium with the blackbody vacuum, a self-propulsive force or torque can appear, resulting in a potentially observable linear or angular terminal velocity, even after thermalization.