How does Casimir energy fall? II. Gravitational acceleration of quantum vacuum energy
- 1. Oklahoma Center for High Energy Physics and Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK 73019 (United States)
Description
It has been demonstrated that quantum vacuum energy gravitates according to the equivalence principle, at least for the finite Casimir energies associated with perfectly conducting parallel plates. We here add further support to this conclusion by considering parallel semitransparent plates, that is, δ-function potentials, acting on a massless scalar field, in a spacetime defined by Rindler coordinates (τ, x, y, ξ). Fixed ξ in such a spacetime represents uniform acceleration. We calculate the force on systems consisting of one or two such plates at fixed values of ξ. In the limit of a large Rindler coordinate ξ (small acceleration), we recover (via the equivalence principle) the situation of weak gravity, and find that the gravitational force on the system is just Mg, where g is the gravitational acceleration and M is the total mass of the system, consisting of the mass of the plates renormalized by the Casimir energy of each plate separately, plus the energy of the Casimir interaction between the plates. This reproduces the previous result in the limit as the coupling to the δ-function potential approaches infinity
Additional details
Identifiers
- DOI
- 10.1088/1751-8113/40/35/014;
- PII
- S1751-8113(07)50620-7;
Publishing Information
- Journal Title
- Journal of Physics. A, Mathematical and Theoretical (Online)
- Journal Volume
- 40
- Journal Issue
- 35
- Journal Page Range
- p. 10935-10943
- ISSN
- 1751-8121
INIS
- Country of Publication
- United Kingdom
- Country of Input or Organization
- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
- INIS RN
- 39012762
- Subject category
- S71: CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSICS;
- Descriptors DEI
- ACCELERATION; COORDINATES; DELTA FUNCTION; EQUIVALENCE PRINCIPLE; GRAVITATION; MASS; PLATES; POTENTIALS; QUANTUM MECHANICS; SCALAR FIELDS; SPACE-TIME
- Descriptors DEC
- FUNCTIONS; MECHANICS