Identity of the van der Waals Force and the Casimir Effect and the Irrelevance of These Phenomena to Sonoluminescence
Abstract
We show that the Casimir, or zero-point, energy of a dilute dielectric ball, or of a spherical bubble in a dielectric medium, coincides with the sum of the van der Waals energies between the molecules that make up the medium. That energy, which is finite and repulsive when self-energy and surface effects are removed, may be unambiguously calculated by either dimensional continuation or by zeta-function regularization. This physical interpretation of the Casimir energy seems to be unambiguous evidence that the bulk self-energy cannot be relevant to sonoluminescence.
- Publication:
-
Physical Review Letters
- Pub Date:
- May 1999
- DOI:
- 10.1103/PhysRevLett.82.3948
- arXiv:
- arXiv:hep-th/9810062
- Bibcode:
- 1999PhRvL..82.3948B
- Keywords:
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- High Energy Physics - Theory;
- Quantum Physics
- E-Print:
- 7 pages, no figures, REVTeX