Corrugated Surfaces
Normal force
A common method
for dealing with non-flat geometries is the Proximity Force Approximation,
which in effect assumes an effective Casimir interactions between locally parallel
pairs on points on the two surfaces, and sums over all such pairs.
For a sinusoidally
corrugated plate:
"Demonstration
of the Nontrivial Boundary Dependence of the Casimir Force,"
Path-Integral formulation
Integrate over
all configurations of the field in the space between deformed plates (or
other boundaries)
Thermal fluctuations: Scalar field with Dirichlet boundary conditions
Quantum fluctuations: EM field is equivalent to Dirichlet + Neumann in certain geometries,
TM modes (Dirichlet) + TE modes (Neumann)
"Probing
the Strong Boundary Shape
Dependence of the Casimir Force,"
T. Emig, A. Hanke, R. Golestanian, and M. Kardar, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 260402 (2001)
Lateral force
A sideways
force to "align" the two
plates at b=λ/2
:
Comparison with the result of pair-wise summation:
"Demonstration
of the Lateral Casimir Force,"
F. Chen, U. Mohideen, et. al , Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 101801 (2002)