Regensburg 2016 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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PV: Plenarvorträge

PV VII

PV VII: Preisträgervortrag

Dienstag, 8. März 2016, 13:15–13:45, H1

Quantum Optics in Vacuum: The Casimir Effect — •Astrid Lambrecht — Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, CNRS, UPMC, ENS, Collège de France Campus Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France — Laureate of the Gentner-Kastler-Prize

The last 15 years have witnessed considerable changes in the topic of Casimir forces. Casimir physics has become an interdisciplinary research field gathering various fluctuation-induced phenomena. It unites today topics including quantum vacuum in cosmology, quantum and critical Casimir effects, the dynamical Casimir effect, atom-surface interactions in cold matter and Rydberg atoms and the role of van der Waals forces in biological systems.

Considering two perfectly flat reflecting parallel plates at zero temperature, Casimir found in 1948 a simple universal expression for the quantum Casimir force. Since the late 1990s numerous experiments have tested precisely Casimir forces between plates and spheres, cylinders, nanostructured plates and atoms. At the same time the theory has been pushed intensively in order to take into account optical properties of the surfaces or particles used in experiments, finite temperature, the surface state and the experimental geometry, often very different from the ideal two plates situation.

The talk will present a quantum optical scattering approach to the theory of Casimir forces, which gives the electro-magnetic interaction between various objects (atoms, molecules, flat plates, nano-structured surfaces, nano spheres, etc) in a unified way. Some recent results on the quantum reflection of antihydrogen atoms on the Casimir potential above specifically designed matter slabs will also be given.