2006/10/31 by Ariel Edery · 97 citations
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Boundary value problem #Casimir effect #Casimir pressure #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Geometry #Massless particle #Mathematical physics #Mathematics #Physics #Piston (optics) #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Scalar (mathematics) #Scalar field #Thermal Radiation and Cooling Technologies #hep-th #math-ph #math.MP #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.75.105012
published in Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields 75(10) (American Physical Society) · 19 pages,3 figures; references updated and typos fixed to match published version
openalex publication_date 2007/05/17 · arxiv created 2007/05/18 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We study the Casimir piston for massless scalar fields obeying Dirichlet boundary conditions in a three-dimensional cavity with sides of arbitrary lengths a, b, and c where a is the plate separation. We obtain an exact expression for the Casimir force on the piston valid for any values of the three lengths. As in the electromagnetic case with perfect-conductor conditions, we find that the Casimir force is negative (attractive) regardless of the values of a, b, and c. Though cases exist where the interior contributes a positive (repulsive) Casimir force, the total Casimir force on the piston is negative when the exterior contribution is included. We also obtain an alternative expression for the Casimir force that is useful computationally when the plate separation a is large.