Interplay between chiral media and perfect electromagnetic conductor plates: repulsive vs. attractive Casimir force transitions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how different electromagnetic materials and geometries influence Casimir forces, revealing conditions for both attractive and repulsive interactions, with implications for experimental setups.

Contribution

It introduces new calculations of Casimir energies involving PEMCs and WSMs, expanding understanding of force transitions in these configurations.

Findings

Repulsive Casimir forces are possible in certain setups.

PECs with WSMs result in purely attractive forces.

Results align with existing literature where comparisons are possible.

Abstract

We determine the Casimir energies and forces in a variety of potentially experimentally viable setups, consisting of parallel plates made of perfect electromagnetic conductors (PEMCs), which generalize perfect electric conductors (PECs) and perfect magnetic conductors (PMCs), and Weyl semimetals (WSMs). Where comparison is possible, our results agree with the Casimir forces calculated elsewhere in the literature, albeit with different methods. We find a multitude of known but also new cases where repulsive Casimir forces are in principle possible, but restricting the setup to PECs combined with the aforementioned WSM geometry, results in purely attractive Casimir forces.