Johnson-Nyquist noise and the Casimir force between real metals at nonzero temperature
arXiv:0801.2832 · doi:10.1088/1751-8113/41/16/164013
Abstract
It is well known since a long time that all lossy conductors at finite temperature display an electronic noise, the Johnson-Nyquist noise, arising from the thermal agitation of electric charges inside the conductor. The existence of this noise implies that two nearby discharged conductors at finite temperature should repel each other, as a result of the electrodynamic interaction between the Johnson-Nyquist currents in either conductor and the eddy currents they induce in the other. It is suggested that this force is at the origin of the recently discovered large repulsive correction to the thermal Casimir force between two lossy metallic plates. Further support for this physical picture is obtained by studying a simple system of two linear noisy antennas. Using elementary concepts from circuit theory, we show that the repulsive force engendered by the Johnson-Nyquist noise results in the same kind of thermodynamic inconsistencies found in the Casimir problem. We show that all inconsistencies are however resolved if account is taken of capacitive effects associated with the end points of the antennas. Our findings therefore suggest that capacitive effects resulting from the finite size of the plates, may be essential for a resolution of the analogous problems met in the thermal Casimir effect.
9 pages, 1 encapsulated figure. Contributed to 8th Workshop on Quantum Field Theory Under the Influence of External Conditions (QFEXT07), Leipzig, Germany, 17-21 Sep 2007
References in corpus (15)
- New Developments in the Casimir Effect
- The Casimir effect: Recent controversies and progress
- Measurement of the Temperature Dependence of the Casimir-Polder Force
- Tests of new physics from precise measurements of the Casimir pressure between two gold-coated plates
- Precise comparison of theory and new experiment for the Casimir force leads to stronger constraints on thermal quantum effects and long-range interactions
- Novel constraints on light elementary particles and extra-dimensional physics from the Casimir effect
- Violation of the Nernst heat theorem in the theory of thermal Casimir force between Drude metals
- Thermal quantum field theory and the Casimir interaction between dielectrics
- Thermal corrections to the Casimir effect
- Thermodynamical aspects of the Casimir force between real metals at nonzero temperature
- Experiment and theory in the Casimir effect
- Nonlocal impedances and the Casimir entropy at low temperatures
- Johnson noise and the thermal Casimir effect
- Generalized plasma-like permittivity and thermal Casimir force between real metals
- Comment on " Low-frequency character of the Casimir force between metallic films"