Comment on “Casimir force acting on magnetodielectric bodies embedded in media”

Iver Brevik and Simen A. Ellingsen
Phys. Rev. A 79, 027801 – Published 2 February 2009

Abstract

In a recent paper [Raabe and Welsch, Phys. Rev. A 71, 013814 (2005)] an electromagnetic energy-momentum tensor is suggested as an alternative to the Abraham-Minkowski tensor and is applied to calculations of Casimir forces in planar geometries. We argue that the universality of the suggested tensor is doubtful; application of the Raabe-Welsch theory to a simple example in classical electrodynamics shows that their proposed tensor is unable to describe the situation in a simple way. We also show that modified Casimir forces acting on the cavity medium as prescribed by these authors suffer from problems of definiteness and peculiar properties which call for experimental support before this theory can be regarded as acceptable.

  • Figure
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  • Received 15 February 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.79.027801

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Iver Brevik* and Simen A. Ellingsen

  • Department of Energy and Process Engineering, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, N-7491 Trondheim, Norway

  • *iver.h.brevik@ntnu.no
  • simen.a.ellingsen@ntnu.no

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Original Article

Casimir force acting on magnetodielectric bodies embedded in media

Christian Raabe and Dirk-Gunnar Welsch
Phys. Rev. A 71, 013814 (2005)

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Issue

Vol. 79, Iss. 2 — February 2009

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