Comment on the sign of the Casimir force
Abstract
Description
I show that reflection positivity implies that the force between any mirror pair of charge-conjugate probes of the quantum vacuum is attractive. This generalizes a recent theorem of Kenneth and Klich to interacting quantum fields, to arbitrary semiclassical bodies, and to quantized probes with non-overlapping wavefunctions. I also prove that the torques on charge-conjugate probes tend always to rotate them into a mirror-symmetric position.
13 pages, 1 figure, Latex file. Several points clarified and expanded, two references added.
13 pages, 1 figure, Latex file. Several points clarified and expanded, two references added.