Beyond-proximity-force-approximation Casimir force between two spheres at finite temperature II: plasma versus Drude modeling, grounded versus isolated spheres

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different material models and experimental configurations affect the deviation of the Casimir force from the proximity force approximation between two gold spheres at finite temperature, addressing the Drude vs plasma controversy.

Contribution

It provides a detailed analysis of the impact of ohmic dissipation and charge reservoir connection on Casimir force deviations from PFA, extending previous theoretical work.

Findings

Deviation magnitude depends on Drude vs plasma model choice.

Connecting spheres to charge reservoirs influences force measurements.

A decimation procedure improves computational efficiency.

Abstract

A recent experiment [J. L. Garrett, D. A. T. Somers, and J. N. Munday, Phys. Rev. Lett {\bf 120}, 040401 (2018)] measured for the first time the gradient of the Casimir force between two gold spheres in vacuum at room temperature, and placed a bound on the magnitude of the deviation of the measured force from the proximity force approximation (PFA). The present work extends a previous theoretical analysis of this experiment [G. Bimonte, Phys. Rev. D {\bf 97}, 085011 (2018)], by analyzing in detail how the magnitude of the deviation from PFA is affected by the inclusion or neglect of ohmic dissipation at zero frequency, a much debated issue in the current Casimir literature, which goes by the name of the Drude vs plasma controversy. We analyze as well the effect of connecting the plates to charge reservoirs, which is the standard configuration used in Casimir experiments. We describe a simple and effective decimation procedure, allowing for a faster computation of the Casimir force for large aspect ratios of the system.