New features of the thermal Casimir force at small separations.
The difference of the thermal Casimir forces at different temperatures between real metals is shown to increase with a decrease of the separation distance. This opens new opportunities for the demonstration of the thermal dependence of the Casimir force. Both configurations of two parallel plates and a sphere above a plate are considered. Different approaches to the theoretical description of the thermal Casimir force are shown to lead to different measurable predictions.
Chen
F
F
Department of Physics, University of California, Riverside, California 92521, USA.
Klimchitskaya
G L
GL
Mohideen
U
U
Mostepanenko
V M
VM