Casimir Forces in Trapped Dilute Bose Gas Between Two Slabs

TL;DR

This paper investigates how quantum and thermal fluctuations induce Casimir forces in a trapped dilute Bose-Einstein condensate, revealing altered power laws and temperature dependencies due to trapping effects.

Contribution

It introduces the impact of strong harmonic trapping on Casimir forces in BECs, highlighting dimensional reduction and temperature-dependent behaviors not previously detailed.

Findings

Harmonic trap modifies Casimir force power law behavior.

Finite temperature induces exotic temperature dependence in the Casimir force.

Potential experimental setups for observing these effects are proposed.

Abstract

We discuss a Casimir force due to zero-temperature quantum fluctuations in a weakly interacting Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC) with a strong harmonic trap. The results show that the presence of a strong harmonic trap changes the power law behavior of Casimir force due to the dimensional reduction effect. At finite temperature, we calculate Casimir force due to thermal fluctuation and find an exotic temperature dependent behavior in the first order term. Finally, we speculate some possible experimental realization and detection of the force in future experiments.