The Casimir energy of a massive fermion field revisited

Abstract

We introduce a general, simple and effective method of evaluating the zero point energy of a quantum field under the influence of arbitrary boundary conditions imposed on the field on flat surfaces perpendicular to a chosen spatial direction. As an example we apply the method to the Casimir effect associated with a massive fermion field on which MIT bag model type of boundary conditions are imposed.

7 pages, no figures, Latex file