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At variance with the authors statement [L. P{a}lov{a}, P. Chandra and P. Coleman, Phys. Rev. B 79, 075101 (2009)], we show that the behavior of the universal scaling amplitude of the gap function in the phonon dispersion relation as a function of the dimensionality $d$, obtained within a self--consistent one--loop approach, is consistent with some previous analytical results obtained in the framework of the $epsilon$--expansion in conjunction with the field theoretic renormalization group method [S. Sachdev, Phys. Rev. B 55, 142 (1997)] and the exact calculations corresponding to the spherical limit i.e. infinite number $N$ of the components of the order parameter [H. Chamati. and N. S. Tonchev, J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 33, 873 (2000)]. Furthermore we determine numerically the behavior of the temporal Casimir amplitude as a function of the dimensionality $d$ between the lower and upper critical dimension and found a maximum at $d=2.9144$. This is confirmed via an expansion near the upper dimension $d=3$.
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We study the quantum paraelectric-ferroelectric transition near a quantum critical point, emphasizing the role of temperature as a finite size effect in time. The influence of temperature near quantum criticality may thus be likened to a temporal Casimir effect. The resulting finite-size scaling approach yields $frac{1}{T^2}$ behavior of the paraelectric susceptibility ($chi$) and the scaling form $chi(omega,T) = frac{1}{omega^2} F(frac{omega}{T})$, recovering results previously found by more technical methods. We use a Gaussian theory to illustrate how these temperature-dependences emerge from a microscopic approach; we characterize the classical-quantum crossover in $chi$, and the resulting phase diagram is presented. We also show that coupling to an acoustic phonon at low temperatures ($T$) is relevant and influences the transition line, possibly resulting in a reentrant quantum ferroelectric phase. Observable consequences of our approach for measurements on specific paraelectric materials at low temperatures are discussed.
The Casimir effect in quantum electrodynamics (QED) is perhaps the best-known example of fluctuation-induced long-ranged force acting on objects (conducting plates) immersed in a fluctuating medium (quantum electromagnetic field in vacuum). A similar effect emerges in statistical physics, where the force acting, e.g., on colloidal particles immersed in a binary liquid mixture is affected by the classical thermal fluctuations occurring in the surrounding medium. The resulting Casimir-like force acquires universal features upon approaching a critical point of the medium and becomes long-ranged at criticality. In turn, this universality allows one to investigate theoretically the temperature dependence of the force via representative models and to stringently test the corresponding predictions in experiments. In contrast to QED, the Casimir force resulting from critical fluctuations can be easily tuned with respect to strength and sign by surface treatments and temperature control. We present some recent advances in the theoretical study of the universal properties of the critical Casimir force arising in thin films. The corresponding predictions compare very well with the experimental results obtained for wetting layers of various fluids. We discuss how the Casimir force between a colloidal particle and a planar wall immersed in a binary liquid mixture has been measured with femto-Newton accuracy, comparing these experimental results with the corresponding theoretical predictions.
Recent experimental data for the complete wetting behavior of pure 4He and of 3He-4He mixtures exposed to solid substrates show that there is a change of the corresponding film thicknesses L upon approaching thermodynamically the lambda-transition and the tricritical end point, respectively, which can be attributed to critical Casimir forces f_C. We calculate the scaling functions vartheta of f_C within models representing the corresponding universality classes. For the mixtures our analysis provides an understanding of the rich behavior of vartheta deduced from the experimental data and predicts the crossover behavior between the tricritical point and the lambda-transition of pure 4He which are connected by a line of critical points. The formation of a soft-mode phase within the wetting films gives rise to a pronounced maximum of f_C below the tricritical point as observed experimentally. Near the tricritical point we find logarithmic corrections ~L^(-3)(ln L)^(1/2) for the leading behavior of vartheta dominating the contributions from the background dispersion forces.
The critical Casimir force (CCF) arises from confining fluctuations in a critical fluid and thus it is a fluctuating quantity itself. While the mean CCF is universal, its (static) variance has previously been found to depend on the microscopic details of the system which effectively set a large-momentum cutoff in the underlying field theory, rendering it potentially large. This raises the question how the properties of the force variance are reflected in experimentally observable quantities, such as the thickness of a wetting film or the position of a suspended colloidal particle. Here, based on a rigorous definition of the instantaneous force, we analyze static and dynamic correlations of the CCF for a conserved fluid in film geometry for various boundary conditions within the Gaussian approximation. We find that the dynamic correlation function of the CCF is independent of the momentum cutoff and decays algebraically in time. Within the Gaussian approximation, the associated exponent depends only on the dynamic universality class but not on the boundary conditions. We furthermore consider a fluid film, the thickness of which can fluctuate under the influence of the time-dependent CCF. The latter gives rise to an effective non-Markovian noise in the equation of motion of the film boundary and induces a distinct contribution to the position variance. Within the approximations used here, at short times, this contribution grows algebraically in time whereas, at long times, it saturates and contributes to the steady-state variance of the film thickness.
Using general scaling arguments combined with mean-field theory we investigate the critical ($T simeq T_c$) and off-critical ($T e T_c$) behavior of the Casimir forces in fluid films of thickness $L$ governed by dispersion forces and exposed to long-ranged substrate potentials which are taken to be equal on both sides of the film. We study the resulting effective force acting on the confining substrates as a function of $T$ and of the chemical potential $mu$. We find that the total force is attractive both below and above $T_c$. If, however, the direct substrate-substrate contribution is subtracted, the force is repulsive everywhere except near the bulk critical point $(T_c,mu_c)$, where critical density fluctuations arise, or except at low temperatures and $(L/a) (betaDelta mu) =O(1)$, with $Delta mu=mu-mu_c <0$ and $a$ the characteristic distance between the molecules of the fluid, i.e., in the capillary condensation regime. While near the critical point the maximal amplitude of the attractive force if of order of $L^{-d}$ in the capillary condensation regime the force is much stronger with maximal amplitude decaying as $L^{-1}$. Essential deviations from the standard finite-size scaling behavior are observed within the finite-size critical region $L/xi=O(1)$ for films with thicknesses $L lesssim L_{rm crit}$, where $L_{rm crit}=xi_0^pm (16 |s|)^{ u/beta}$, with $ u$ and $beta$ as the standard bulk critical exponents and with $s=O(1)$ as the dimensionless parameter that characterizes the relative strength of the long-ranged tail of the substrate-fluid over the fluid-fluid interaction. We present the modified finite-size scaling pertinent for such a case and analyze in detail the finite-size behavior in this region.
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