No Arabic abstract
Vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields between physical objects depend on the shapes, positions, and internal composition of the latter. For objects of arbitrary shapes, even made from idealized materials, the calculation of the associated zero-point (Casimir) energy is an analytically intractable challenge. We propose a new numerical approach to this problem based on machine-learning techniques and illustrate the effectiveness of the method in a (2+1) dimensional scalar field theory. The Casimir energy is first calculated numerically using a Monte-Carlo algorithm for a set of the Dirichlet boundaries of various shapes. Then, a neural network is trained to compute this energy given the Dirichlet domain, treating the latter as black-and-white pixelated images. We show that after the learning phase, the neural network is able to quickly predict the Casimir energy for new boundaries of general shapes with reasonable accuracy.
We propose a definition of the Casimir energy for free lattice fermions. From this definition, we study the Casimir effects for the massless or massive naive fermion, Wilson fermion, and (Mobius) domain-wall fermion in $1+1$ dimensional spacetime with the spatial periodic or antiperiodic boundary condition. For the naive fermion, we find an oscillatory behavior of the Casimir energy, which is caused by the difference between odd and even lattice sizes. For the Wilson fermion, in the small lattice size of $N geq 3$, the Casimir energy agrees very well with that of the continuum theory, which suggests that we can control the discretization artifacts for the Casimir effect measured in lattice simulations. We also investigate the dependence on the parameters tunable in Mobius domain-wall fermions. Our findings will be observed both in condensed matter systems and in lattice simulations with a small size.
The Casimir effect arises from the zero-point energy of particles in momentum space deformed by the existence of two parallel plates. For degrees of freedom on the lattice, its energy-momentum dispersion is determined so as to keep a periodicity within the Brillouin zone, so that its Casimir effect is modified. We study the properties of Casimir effect for lattice fermions, such as the naive fermion, Wilson fermion, and overlap fermion based on the Mobius domain-wall fermion formulation, in the $1+1$-, $2+1$-, and $3+1$-dimensional space-time with the periodic or antiperiodic boundary condition. An oscillatory behavior of Casimir energy between odd and even lattice size is induced by the contribution of ultraviolet-momentum (doubler) modes, which realizes in the naive fermion, Wilson fermion in a negative mass, and overlap fermions with a large domain-wall height. Our findings can be experimentally observed in condensed matter systems such as topological insulators and also numerically measured in lattice simulations.
We study the Casimir effect in axion electrodynamics. A finite $theta$-term affects the energy dispersion relation of photon if $theta$ is time and/or space dependent. We focus on a special case with linearly inhomogeneous $theta$ along the $z$-axis. Then we demonstrate that the Casimir force between two parallel plates perpendicular to the $z$-axis can be either attractive or repulsive, dependent on the gradient of $theta$. We call this repulsive component in the Casimir force induced by inhomogeneous $theta$ the anomalous Casimir effect.
The dynamical Casimir effect is an intriguing phenomenon in which photons are generated from vacuum due to a non-adiabatic change in some boundary conditions. In particular, it connects the motion of an accelerated mechanical mirror to the generation of photons. While pioneering experiments demonstrating this effect exist, a conclusive measurement involving a mechanical generation is still missing. We show that a hybrid system consisting of a piezoelectric mechanical resonator coupled to a superconducting cavity may allow to electro-mechanically generate measurable photons from vacuum, intrinsically associated to the dynamical Casimir effect. Such an experiment may be achieved with current technology, based on film bulk acoustic resonators directly coupled to a superconducting cavity. Our results predict a measurable photon generation rate, which can be further increased through additional improvements such as using superconducting metamaterials.
We investigate the Kondo effect with Wilson fermions. This is based on a mean-field approach for the chiral Gross-Neveu model including four-point interactions between a light Wilson fermion and a heavy fermion. For massless Wilson fermions, we demonstrate the appearance of the Kondo effect. We point out that there is a coexistence phase with both the light-fermion scalar condensate and Kondo condensate, and the critical chemical potentials of the scalar condensate are shifted by the Kondo effect. For negative-mass Wilson fermions, we find that the Kondo effect is favored near the parameter region realizing the Aoki phase. Our findings will be useful for understanding the roles of heavy impurities in Dirac semimetals, topological insulators, and lattice QCD simulations.