title: Giant vacuum forces via transmission lines.
abstract: Quantum electromagnetic fluctuations induce forces between neutral particles, known as the van der Waals and Casimir interactions. These fundamental forces, mediated by virtual photons from the vacuum, play an important role in basic physics and chemistry and in emerging technologies involving, e.g., microelectromechanical systems or quantum information processing. Here we show that these interactions can be enhanced by many orders of magnitude upon changing the character of the mediating vacuum modes. By considering two polarizable particles in the vicinity of any standard electric transmission line, along which photons can propagate in one dimension, we find a much stronger and longer-range interaction than in free space. This enhancement may have profound implications on many-particle and bulk systems and impact the quantum technologies mentioned above. The predicted giant vacuum force is estimated to be measurable in a coplanar waveguide line.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel; ephraim.shahmoon@weizmann.ac.il.
authors.forename: Ephraim
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Shahmoon
authors.affiliation: Quantum Optics Group, Vienna Center for Quantum Science and Technology, Atominstitut, Technical University Vienna, 1020 Vienna, Austria;Department of Theoretical Astrophysics, Ioffe Physico-Technical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg 194021, Russia; andWolfgang Pauli Institute, 1090 Vienna, Austria.
authors.forename: Igor
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mazets
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemical Physics, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot 76100, Israel;
authors.forename: Gershon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Kurizki
keywords: Casimir physics; circuit quantum electrodynamics; dispersion forces; quantum vacuum