title: Thermodynamic Casimir forces between a sphere and a plate: Monte Carlo simulation of a spin model.
abstract: We study the thermodynamic Casimir force between a spherical object and a plate. We consider the bulk universality class of the three-dimensional Ising model, which is relevant for experiments on binary mixtures. To this end, we simulate the improved Blume-Capel model. Following Hucht, we compute the force by integrating energy differences over the inverse temperature. We demonstrate that these energy differences can be computed efficiently by using a particular cluster algorithm. Our numerical results for strongly symmetry breaking boundary conditions are compared with the Derjaguin approximation for small distances and the small sphere expansion for large distances between the sphere and the plate.
authors.affiliation: Institut für Physik, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Newtonstr. 15, 12489 Berlin, Germany. martin.hasenbusch@physik.hu-berlin.de
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Hasenbusch
mesh_terms: D003198:Computer Simulation; D004735:Energy Transfer; D060526:Magnetic Fields; D015233:Models, Statistical; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D013314:Stress, Mechanical; D013816:Thermodynamics