Advances in the Casimir Effect

Professor Umar Mohideen has held various positions at the University of California, Riverside, USA, and is now Vice-Chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy there.Professor Galina Leonidovna Klimchitskaya began her career at the Leningrad State University, and is now Professor of the Department of Physics of the North-West Technical University (St.Petersburg, Russia). She has held visiting Professorships at Leipzig University, Germany; University of Paraiba, Joao Pessoa, Brazil; Central Brazilian Physical Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the University of California, Riverside, USA.Dr Michael Bordag has held a number of positions at the University of Leipzig, Germany, and currently lectures there.Professor Vladimir Mostepanenko is currently Principal Researcher of the Noncommercial Partnership ``Scientific Instruments'' (Moscow, Russia). He has held Visiting Professorships at Leipzig University, Germany; University of Paraiba, Joao Pessoa, Brazil; Central Brazilian Physical Institute, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; and the University of California, Riverside, USA.

This is the first modern, comprehensive book on the Casimir effect, a very timely subject of growing importance and general appeal in physics. Although the Casimir effect has been an intriguing subject on its own right for more than half a century, it is experiencing a renaissance at the moment, because only fairly recently first precise measurements of the Casimir force have been made and because the Casimir effect is becoming important in nanotechnology.

• 1. Introduction ; I: PHYSICAL AND MATHEMATICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THE CASIMIR EFFECT FOR IDEAL BOUNDARIES ; 2. Simple Models of the Casimir effect ; 3. Field quantization and vacuum energy in the presence of boundaries ; 4. Regularization and renormalization of the vacuum energy ; 5. The Casimir effect at nonzero temperature ; 6. Approximate and numerical approaches to the Casimir effect ; 7. The Casimir effect for two ideal metal planes ; 8. The Casimir effect in rectangular boxes ; 9. Single spherical and cylindrical boundaries ; 10. The Casimir force between objects of arbitrary shape ; 11. Spaces with non-Euclidean topology ; II: THE CASIMIR FORCE BETWEEN REAL BODIES ; 12. The Lifshitz theory of van der Waals and Casimir forces between plane dielectrics ; 13. The Casimir interaction between plates made of real metals at zero temperature ; 14. The Casimir interaction between real metals at nonzero temperature ; 15. The Casimir interaction between metal and dielectric ; 16. The Lifshitz theory of atom-wall interaction ; 17. The Casimir force between rough and corrugated surfaces ; III: MEASUREMENTS OF THE CASIMIR FORCE AND THEIR APPLICATIONS IN BOTH FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS AND NANOTECHNOLOGY ; 18. General requirements for Casimir force measurements ; 19. Measurements of the Casimir force between equals ; 20. Measurements of the Casimir force with semiconductors ; 21. Measurements of the Casimir force in configurations with corrugated surfaces ; 22. Measurement of the Casimir-Polder force ; 23. Applications of the Casimir force in nanotechnology ; 24. Constraints on hypothetical interactions from the Casimir effect ; 25. Conclusions and outlook