Divergence of Casimir stress in inhomogeneous media

Simpson, William M. R.; Horsley, S. A. R.; Leonhardt, U.

Abstract

We examine the local behavior of the regularized stress tensor commonly used in calculations of the Casimir force for a dielectric medium inhomogeneous in one direction. It is shown that the usual expression for the stress tensor is not finite anywhere within the medium, whatever the temporal dispersion or index profile, and that this divergence is unlikely to be removed through a simple modification to the regularization procedure. Our analytic argument is illustrated numerically for a medium approximated as a series of homogeneous strips, as the width of these strips is taken to zero. The findings hold for all magnetodielectric media.

Citation

Simpson, W. M. R., Horsley, S. A. R., & Leonhardt, U. (2013). Divergence of Casimir stress in inhomogeneous media. Physical Review A, 87(4), Article 043806. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.87.043806

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Online Publication Date: Apr 5, 2013
• Publication Date: 2013-04
• Deposit Date: May 18, 2024
• Journal: Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics
• Print ISSN: 1050-2947
• Electronic ISSN: 1094-1622
• Publisher: American Physical Society
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 87
• Issue: 4
• Article Number: 043806
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/physreva.87.043806
• Public URL: https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2453553