Parity violating cylindrical shell in the framework of QED

TL;DR

This paper calculates the Casimir energy for a cylindrical shell interacting with electromagnetic fields via a Chern-Simons term, revealing how the energy depends on the coupling constant and confirming known results in the perfect conductor limit.

Contribution

It introduces a QFT-consistent model for Casimir energy involving a Chern-Simons interaction on a cylindrical shell, extending previous perfect conductor results.

Findings

Casimir energy depends on the coupling constant a

Casimir force remains attractive for all a

Reproduces known results for perfect conductors as a approaches infinity

Abstract

We present calculations of Casimir energy (CE) in a system of quantized electromagnetic (EM) field interacting with an infinite circular cylindrical shell (which we call `the defect'). Interaction is described in the only QFT-consistent way by Chern-Simon action concentrated on the defect, with a single coupling constant $a$. For regularization of UV divergencies of the theory we use % physically motivated Pauli-Villars regularization of the free EM action. The divergencies are extracted as a polynomial in regularization mass $M$, and they renormalize classical part of the surface action. We reveal the dependence of CE on the coupling constant $a$. Corresponding Casimir force is attractive for all values of $a$. For $a\to\infty$ we reproduce the known results for CE for perfectly conducting cylindrical shell first obtained by DeRaad and Milton.