Switching and amplifying three-body Casimir effects

TL;DR

This paper reports the first observation of three-body Casimir interactions between macroscopic objects and introduces a switchable architecture that could lead to Casimir transistors for sensing and information processing.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental demonstration of three-body Casimir effects and proposes a novel opto-mechanical switchable system for controlling virtual photon interactions.

Findings

First observation of three-body Casimir interactions.

Development of a Casimir transistor prototype.

Potential applications in sensing and quantum information processing.

Abstract

The dynamics of three interacting objects has been investigated extensively in Newtonian gravitational physics (often termed the three-body problem), and is important for many quantum systems, including nuclei, Efimov states, and frustrated spin systems. However, the dynamics of three macroscopic objects interacting through quantum vacuum fluctuations (virtual photons) is still an unexplored frontier. Here, we report the first observation of Casimir interactions between three isolated macroscopic objects. We propose and demonstrate a three terminal switchable architecture exploiting opto-mechanical Casimir interactions that can lay the foundations of a Casimir transistor. Beyond the paradigm of Casimir forces between two objects in different geometries, our Casimir transistor represents an important development for control of three-body virtual photon interactions and will have potential applications in sensing and information processing with the Casimir effect.