Focusing Vacuum Fluctuations

Abstract

The focusing of the vacuum modes of a quantized field by a parabolic mirror is investigated. We use a geometric optics approximation to calculate the energy density and mean squared field averages for scalar and electromagnetic fields near the focus. We find that these quantities grow as an inverse power of the distance to the focus. There is an attractive Casimir-Polder force on an atom which will draw it into the focus. Some estimates of the magnitude of the effects of this focusing indicate that it may be observable.

20 pages, 4 figures; typos corrected, two refs and some comments added

References in corpus (1)

• Casimir Force between a Dielectric Sphere and a Wall: A Model for Amplification of Vacuum Fluctuations

Cited by in corpus (11)

• Casimir Force at a Knife's Edge
• Effective Lagrangians for Scalar Fields and Finite Size Effects in Field Theory
• A Gedanken spacecraft that operates using the quantum vacuum (Dynamic Casimir effect)
• Electromagnetic Casimir Forces of Parabolic Cylinder and Knife-Edge Geometries
• Of Some Theoretical Significance: Implications of Casimir Effects
• A Fluid Analog Model for Boundary Effects in Field Theory
• Virtual Processes and Superradiance in Spin-Boson Models
• Focusing Vacuum Fluctuations II
• The Phononic Casimir Effect: An Analog Model
• Computing the Casimir energy using the point-matching method
• Semiclassical Casimir Energies at Finite Temperature