Comparison of the experimental data for the Casimir pressure with the Lifshitz theory at zero temperature

TL;DR

This paper compares experimental Casimir pressure data with Lifshitz theory at zero temperature, revealing discrepancies depending on the chosen Drude parameters and suggesting the generalized plasma-like model aligns better with experiments.

Contribution

It provides a detailed comparison between experimental data and Lifshitz theory at zero temperature, highlighting the impact of different Drude parameters and proposing a decisive experiment.

Findings

Experimental data exclude Lifshitz at zero temperature with common Drude parameters at 70% confidence.

Using alternative Drude parameters, the exclusion confidence increases to 95%.

The generalized plasma-like model is consistent with experimental results.

Abstract

We perform detailed comparison of the experimental data of the experiment on the determination of the Casimir pressure between two parallel Au plates with the theoretical values computed using the Lifshitz formula at zero temperature. Computations are done using the optical data for the complex index of refraction of Au extrapolated to low frequencies by means of the Drude model with both most often used and other suggested Drude parameters. It is shown that the experimental data exclude the Lifshitz formula at zero temperature at a 70% confidence level if the Drude model with most often used values of the parameters is employed. If other values of the Drude parameters are used, the Lifshitz formula at zero frequency is experimentally excluded at a 95% confidence level. The Lifshitz formula at zero temperature combined with the generalized plasma-like model with most often used value of the plasma frequency is shown to be experimentally consistent. We propose a decisive experiment which will shed additional light on the role of relaxation properties of conduction electrons in the Casimir effect.