Conical Casimir Pistons with Hybrid Boundary Conditions

Abstract

In this paper we compute the Casimir energy and force for massless scalar fields endowed with hybrid boundary conditions, in the setting of the bounded generalized cone. By using spectral zeta function regularization methods, we obtain explicit expressions for the Casimir energy and force in arbitrary dimensions in terms of the zeta function defined on the piston. Our general formulas are, subsequently, specialized to the case in which the piston is modelled by a $d$-dimensional sphere. In this particular situation, explicit results are given for $d=2,3,4,5$.