No-nonsense Casimir force

Abstract

Two thin conducting, electrically neutral, parallel plates forming an isolated system in vacuum exert attracting force on each other, whose origin is the quantum electrodynamical interaction. This theoretical hypothesis, known as Casimir effect, has been also confirmed experimentally. Despite long history of the subject, no completely convincing theoretical analysis of this effect appears in the literature. Here we discuss the effect (for the scalar field) anew, on a revised physical and mathematical basis. Standard, but advanced methods of relativistic quantum theory are used. No anomalous features of the conventional approaches appear. The Casimir quantitative prediction for the force is shown to constitute the leading asymptotic term, for large separation of the plates, of the full, model-dependent expression.