UCLA                                Physics Colloquium                       November 19, 2015

Levitation by Casimir Forces in and out of equilibrium

Mehran Kardar

Thosten Emig, Giuseppe Bimonte, Noah Graham, Robert Jaffe

Ramin Golestanian, Mark Hertzberg

Jamal Rahi, Mohammad Maghrebi

Vlad Golyk, Matthias Krüger


Outline

I.        Casimir force: Theory, Experiment, & Application                                            

II.      Thermal Casimir force: Critical fluctuations

III.     Repulsion/Levitation? Boundary effects (fluids, meta-materials, ...); and Shapes (spheres, pistons, ...) 

IV.     Earnshaw's theorem in electrostatics and for fluctuation-induced forces

V.      Thermal nonequilibrium: Near field heat transfer, anisotropy 

VI.    Thermal nonequilibrium: Force, levitation and propulsion 

VII.   Dynamic phenomena: Rotating object

VIII.  Summary