Rotating Casimir systems: magnetic-field-enhanced perpetual motion, possible realization in doped nanotubes, and laws of thermodynamics

TL;DR

This paper proposes a theoretical mechanism where zero-point vacuum fluctuations, enhanced by magnetic fields, could induce permanent rotation in doped nanotubes, challenging traditional thermodynamics and suggesting a new form of perpetual motion device.

Contribution

It introduces a magnetic-field-enhanced rotational vacuum effect in doped nanotubes, enabling theoretically stable perpetual rotation without internal moving parts, and discusses its thermodynamic consistency.

Findings

Zero-point energy can favor permanent rotation in doped nanotubes.

Magnetic fields significantly amplify the rotational vacuum effect.

The proposed devices are consistent with thermodynamic laws.

Abstract

Recently, we have demonstrated that for a certain class of Casimir-type systems ("devices") the energy of zero-point vacuum fluctuations reaches its global minimum when the device rotates about a certain axis rather than remains static. This rotational vacuum effect may lead to the emergence of permanently rotating objects provided the negative rotational energy of zero-point fluctuations cancels the positive rotational energy of the device itself. In this paper, we show that for massless electrically charged particles the rotational vacuum effect should be drastically (astronomically) enhanced in the presence of a magnetic field. As an illustration, we show that in a background of experimentally available magnetic fields the zero-point energy of massless excitations in rotating torus-shaped doped carbon nanotubes may indeed overwhelm the classical energy of rotation for certain angular frequencies so that the permanently rotating state is energetically favored. The suggested "zero-point driven" devices -- which have no internally moving parts -- correspond to a perpetuum mobile of a new, fourth kind: They do not produce any work despite the fact that their equilibrium (ground) state corresponds to a permanent rotation even in the presence of an external environment. We show that our proposal is consistent with the laws of thermodynamics.