title: Fluctuation-induced interactions between dielectrics in general geometries.
abstract: We study thermal Casimir and quantum nonretarded Lifshitz interactions between dielectrics in general geometries. We map the calculation of the classical partition function onto a determinant, which we discretize and evaluate with the help of Cholesky factorization. The quantum partition function is treated by path integral quantization of a set of interacting dipoles and reduces to a product of determinants. We compare the approximations of pairwise additivity and proximity force with our numerical methods. We propose a "factorization approximation" that gives rather good numerical results in the geometries that we study.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Physico-Chime Theorique, Gulliver CNRS-ESPCI 7083, 10 rue Vauquelin, 75231 Paris Cedex 05, France.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pasquali
authors.forename: A C
authors.initials: AC
authors.lastname: Maggs