Theory of Coherent Van der Waals Matter

TL;DR

This paper develops a comprehensive theory of coherent Van der Waals (cVdW) interactions, revealing their dominance by many-body effects that lead to unique low-dimensional structures with unusual mechanical properties.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed microscopic theory of cVdW interactions, highlighting their strong many-body nature and resulting in novel structural and mechanical phenomena.

Findings

cVdW interactions are dominated by many-body effects

cVdW 2- and 3-body interactions are of similar order

cVdW structures exhibit non-local properties and size-dependent stiffness

Abstract

We explain in depth the previously proposed theory of the coherent Van der Waals(cVdW) interaction - the counterpart of Van der Waals (VdW) force - emerging in spatially coherently fluctuating electromagnetic fields. We show that cVdW driven matter is dominated by many body interactions, which are significantly stronger than those found in standard Van der Waals (VdW) systems. Remarkably, the leading 2- and 3-body interactions are of the same order with respect to the distance $(\propto R^{-6})$, in contrast to the usually weak VdW 3-body effects ($\propto R^{-9}$). From a microscopic theory we show that the anisotropic cVdW many body interactions drive the formation of low-dimensional structures such as chains, membranes and vesicles with very unusual, non-local properties. In particular, cVdW chains display a logarithmically growing stiffness with the chain length, while cVdW membranes have a bending modulus growing linearly with their size. We argue that the cVdW anisotropic many body forces cause local cohesion but also a negative effective "surface tension". We conclude by deriving the equation of state for cVdW materials and propose new experiments to test the theory, in particular the unusual 3-body nature of cVdW.