Geometry and Spectrum of Casimir Forces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a novel method for analyzing the Helmholtz spectrum in arbitrarily shaped boundaries, enabling precise, non-perturbative calculations of Casimir forces, including complex geometries and boundary conditions.

Contribution

It develops a new approach to the Helmholtz spectrum for arbitrary shapes, deriving boundary-induced density of states changes and applying it to Casimir force calculations.

Findings

Derived non-perturbative Casimir interaction results.

Identified universal behavior at large separations.

Accurately computed lateral forces between corrugated surfaces.

Abstract

We present a new approach to the Helmholtz spectrum for arbitrarily shaped boundaries and general boundary conditions. We derive the boundary induced change of the density of states in terms of the free Green's function from which we obtain non-perturbative results for the Casimir interaction between rigid surfaces. As an example, we compute the lateral electrodynamic force between two corrugated surfaces over a wide parameter range. Universal behavior, fixed only by the largest wavelength component of the surface shape, is identified at large surface separations, complementing known short distance expansions which we also reproduce with high precision.