Thermal Issues in Casimir Forces Between Conductors and Semiconductors

TL;DR

This paper reviews the current understanding and experimental status of temperature dependence in Casimir forces between conductors and semiconductors, highlighting unresolved controversies and recent related experiments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive review of the controversy and experimental findings regarding thermal effects in Casimir forces involving conductors and semiconductors.

Findings

Temperature dependence in metal Casimir forces remains unobserved experimentally.

Related Casimir-Polder force between BEC and silica shows temperature effects.

Controversies exist over the magnitude of the linear temperature term at various distances.

Abstract

The Casimir effect between metal surfaces has now been well-verified at the few-percent level experimentally. However, the temperature dependence has never been observed in the laboratory, since all experiments are conducted at room temperature. The temperature dependence for the related Casimir-Polder force between an atom and a bulk material has, in contrast, been observed between a BEC and a silica substrate, with the environment and the silica held at different temperatures. There is a controversy about the temperature dependence for the force between metals, having to do with the magnitude of the linear temperature term for both low and high temperature, the latter being most prominent at large distances. There are also related anomalies pertaining to semiconductors. The status of this controversy, and of the relevant experiments, are reviewed in this report.