Casimir energy and the superconducting phase transition

TL;DR

This paper proposes a method to measure how Casimir energy changes during the superconducting transition, potentially resolving debates about TE zero modes' role in Casimir effects.

Contribution

It introduces a novel experimental approach linking Casimir energy variation to superconducting phase transition, addressing longstanding theoretical controversies.

Findings

Casimir energy varies with superconducting transition

Potential for direct measurement of Casimir energy change

Insights into TE zero mode contributions

Abstract

We study the influence of Casimir energy on the critical field of a superconducting film, and we show that by this means it might be possible to directly measure, for the first time, the variation of Casimir energy that accompanies the superconducting transition. It is shown that this novel approach may also help clarifying the long-standing controversy on the contribution of TE zero modes to the Casimir energy in real materials.