Critical Casimir forces for Ising films with variable boundary fields

TL;DR

This paper uses Monte Carlo simulations to analyze critical Casimir forces in 3D Ising films with variable boundary fields, focusing on their scaling behavior and the transition from repulsive to attractive forces as temperature varies.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed analysis of the scaling behavior of critical Casimir forces with variable boundary fields, including finite size corrections, and compares results with existing literature.

Findings

Critical Casimir force changes from repulsive to attractive with temperature increase.

Scaling behavior of the force is characterized including boundary field effects.

Finite size corrections are significant for accurate force predictions.

Abstract

Monte Carlo simulations based on an integration scheme for free energy differences is used to compute critical Casimir forces for three-dimensional Ising films with various boundary fields. We study the scaling behavior of the critical Casimir force, including the scaling variable related to the boundary fields. Finite size corrections to scaling are taken into account. We pay special attention to that range of surface field strengths within which the force changes from repulsive to attractive upon increasing the temperature. Our data are compared with other results available in the literature.