Joint ICTP/SISSA Statistical physics seminar: "Casimir effects: Physical manifestations of the quantum vacuum"
Starts 19 Jan 2010 11:00
Ends 19 Jan 2010 20:00
Central European Time
ICTP
Leonardo da Vinci Building Seminar Room
Strada Costiera, 11
I - 34151 Trieste (Italy)
The forces and torques among macroscopic objects caused by fluctuating quantum fields are known as Casimir effects after the Dutch theoretician who discovered them in the late 1940's. Recent high precision experiments and emerging micro-electromechanical applications have generated great interest in the nature, properties, and manipulation of Casimir effects. I will discuss the origins, interpretation, and computation of Casimir effects. In particular I will outline the development of a powerful method to compute Casimir forces and torques based on classical scattering theory. I will survey some of the results obtained with these methods.