Bulk and boundary effects on the decay of the thermodynamic Casimir force

Abstract

We consider the decay of the thermodynamic Casimir force in phases with a finite correlation length. For the case of the strip, we use properties of low energy two-dimensional field theory to show that the decay depends on the symmetry properties of the boundary conditions, in distinctive ways that we determine exactly. Features characteristic of the bulk universality class may induce modifications that we also discuss. Symmetry breaking and symmetry preserving boundary conditions exchange their role with respect to the decay of the force when exchanging spontaneously broken with disordered phases. Several of our arguments extend to higher dimensions.