2012/05/31 by K. A. Milton, Iver Brevik, Simen A. Ellingsen
Physics and Astronomy · #hep-th #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0031-8949/2012/t151/014070
published as Physica Scripta T151, 014070 (2012) · 8 pages, 4 figures, extended version of presentation at Frontiers of Quantum and Mesoscopic Thermodynamics, Prague, July 2011. Revision corrects some errors in references and minor typographic errors. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:quant-ph/0605005
arxiv created 2012/07/20 · arxiv updated 2014/01/28
The Casimir effect between metal surfaces has now been well-verified at the few-percent level experimentally. However, the temperature dependence has never been observed in the laboratory, since all experiments are conducted at room temperature. The temperature dependence for the related Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a bulk material has, in contrast, been observed between a BEC and a silica substrate, with the environment and the silica held at different temperatures. There is a controversy about the temperature dependence for the force between metals, having to do with the magnitude of the linear temperature term for both low and high temperature, the latter being most prominent at large distances. There are also related anomalies pertaining to semiconductors. The status of this controversy, and of the relevant experiments, are reviewed in this report.