On the entropy of a spherical plasma shell

Negative entropy was repeatedly observed in the Casimir effect caused by dissipation or geometry. However, it was restricted to subsystems. Recently, the question about the entropy for a complete Casimir effect like configuration was raised. In the present paper we consider a spherical plasma shell which can be considered as a (crude) model for a giant carbon molecule (e.g. C₆₀). The entropy is free of ultraviolet divergences and its calculation does not need any regularization. We calculate the entropy numerically and demonstrate unambiguously the existence of a region where it takes negative values. This region is at small values of temperature and plasma frequency (in units of the inverse radius). (paper)