Exact results for Casimir forces using Surface Impedance: Nonlocal Media

TL;DR

This paper presents an exact method for calculating Casimir forces between arbitrary materials using surface impedance, including nonlocal media, unifying perfect conductor and Lifshitz limits.

Contribution

It introduces a surface impedance approach to obtain exact Casimir force results for complex media, including nonlocal dielectric responses.

Findings

Exact Casimir force calculations for nonlocal media

Unified approach encompassing perfect conductors and Lifshitz formula

Rigorous example with hydrodynamic nonlocal dielectric response

Abstract

We show that exact results are obtained for the calculation of Casimir forces between arbitrary materials using the concept of surface impedances, obtaining in a trivial way the force in the limit of perfect conductors and also Lifshitz formula in the limit of semi-infinite media. As an example we present a full and rigorous calculation of the Casimir force between two metallic half-spaces described by a hydrodynamic nonlocal dielectric response.