Casimir experiments showing saturation effects

• We address several different Casimir experiments where theory and experiment disagree. First out is the classical Casimir force measurement between two metal half spaces; here both in the form of the torsion pendulum experiment by Lamoreaux and in the form of the Casimir pressure measurement between a gold sphere and a gold plate as performed by Decca et al.; theory predicts a large negative thermal correction, absent in the high precision experiments. The third experiment is the measurement of the Casimir force between a metal plate and a laser irradiated semiconductor membrane as performed by Chen et al.; the change in force with laser intensity is larger than predicted by theory. The fourth experiment is the measurement of the Casimir force between an atom and a wall in the form of the measurement by Obrecht et al. of the change in oscillation frequency of a 87Rb Bose-Einstein condensate trapped to a fused silica wall; the change is smaller than predicted by theory. We show that saturation effects can explain the discrepancies between theory and experiment observed in all these cases.

Nyckelord

Bose-Einstein condensation

Casimir effect

laser beam effects

optical saturation

quantum optics

radiation pressure

rubidium

semiconductor materials

silicon compounds

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