Casimir Energies and General Relativity Energy Conditions

Abstract

Quantum systems often contain negative energy densities. In general relativity, negative energies lead to time advancement, rather than the usual time delay. As a result, some Casimir systems appear to violate energy conditions that would protect against exotic phenomena such as closed timelike curves and superluminal travel. However, when one examines a variety of Casimir systems using self-consistent approximations in quantum field theory, one finds that a particular energy condition is still obeyed, which rules out exotic phenomena. I will discuss the methods and results of these calculations in detail and speculate on their potential implications in general relativity.

10 pages, 7 .eps figures; To appear in the proceedings of QFEXT '05, Barcelona

References in corpus (4)

• Investigations on T violation and CPT symmetry in the neutral kaon system -- a pedagogical approach --
• Plate with a hole obeys the averaged null energy condition
• The Electromagnetic Field Stress Tensor between Dielectric Half-Spaces
• Energy conditions outside a dielectric ball

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Perturbative zero-point energy for a cylinder of elliptical section