No Arabic abstract
In stationary nonequilibrium states a coupling between hydrodynamic modes causes thermal fluctuations to become long ranged inducing nonequilibrium Casimir forces or pressures. Here we consider nonequilibrium Casimir pressures induced in liquids by a velocity gradient. Specifically, we have obtained explicit expressions for the magnitude of the shear-induced pressure enhancement in a liquid layer between two horizontal plates that complete and correct results previously presented in the literature. In contrast to nonequiibrium Casimir pressures induced by a temperature gradient, kinetic theory shows that nonequilibrium contributions from short-range fluctuations are no longer negligible. In addition, it is noted that computer simulations of model fluids in shear observe effects from molecular correlations at nanoscales that have a different physical origin. The idea that such computer simulations probe shear-induced pressures resulting from coupling of long-wavelength hydrodynamic modes is erroneous.
In this article we derive expressions for Casimir-like pressures induced by nonequilibrium concentration fluctuations in liquid mixtures. The results are then applied to liquid mixtures in which the concentration gradient results from a temperature gradient through the Soret effect. A comparison is made between the pressures induced by nonequilibrium concentration fluctuations in liquid mixtures and those induced by nonequilibrium temperature fluctuations in one-component fluids. Some suggestions for experimental verification procedures are also presented.
The Casimir interaction between two objects, or between an object and a plane, depends on their relative orientations. We make these angular dependences explicit by considering prolate or oblate spheroids. The variation with orientation is calculated exactly at asymptotically large distances for the electromagnetic field, and at arbitrary separations for a scalar field. For a spheroid in front of a mirror, the leading term is orientation independent, and we find the optimal orientation from computations at higher order.
In stationary nonequilibrium states coupling between hydrodynamic modes causes thermal fluctuations to become long ranged inducing nonequilibrium Casimir pressures. Here we consider nonequilibrium Casimir pressures induced in liquids by a velocity gradient. Specifically, we have obtained explicit expressions for the magnitude of the shear-induced pressure enhancements in a liquid layer between two horizontal plates that complete and correct results previously presented in the literature. In contrast to nonequilibrium Casimir pressures induced by a temperature or concentration gradient, we find that in shear nonequilibrium contributions from short-range fluctuations are no longer negligible. In addition, it is noted that currently available computer simulations of model fluids in shear observe effects from molecular correlations at nanoscales that have a different physical origin and do not probe shear-induced pressures resulting from coupling of long-wavelength hydrodynamic modes. Even more importantly, we find that in actual experimental conditions, shear-induced pressure enhancements are caused by viscous heating and not by thermal velocity fluctuations. Hence, isothermal computer simulations are irrelevant for the interpretation of experimental shear-induced pressure enhancements.
We present a new Monte Carlo method to calculate Casimir forces acting on objects in a near-critical fluid, considering the two basic cases of a wall and a sphere embedded in a two-dimensional Ising medium. During the simulation, the objects are moved through the system with appropriate statistical weights, and consequently are attracted or repelled from the system boundaries depending on the boundary conditions. The distribution function of the object position is utilized to obtain the residual free energy, or Casimir potential, of the configuration as well as the corresponding Casimir force. The results are in perfect agreement with known exact results. The method can easily be generalized to more complicated geometries, to higher dimensions, and also to colloidal suspensions with many particles.
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.