arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to M. Bordag.
The vacuum energy of a scalar field in a spherically symmetric background field is considered. Based on previous work [hep-th/9608070], the numerical procedure is refined further and applied to several examples. We provide numerical evidence that repulsive potentials lead to positive contributions to the vacuum energy. Furthermore, the crucial role played by bound-states is clearly seen.
We consider the Casimir force including all important corrections to it for the configuration used in a recent experiment employing an atomic force microscope. We calculate the long-range hypothetical forces due to the exchange of light and massless elementary particles between the atoms constituting the bodies used in the experiment --- a dielectric plate and a sphere both covered by two thin metallic layers. The corrections to these forces caused by the small surface distortions were found to be essential for nanometer Compton wave lengthes of hypothetical particles. New constraints for the constants of Yukawa-type interactions are obtained from the fact that such interactions were not observed within the limits of experimental accuracy. They are stronger up to 140 times in some range than the best constraints known up date. Different possibilities are also discussed to strengthen the obtained constraints in several times without principal changes of the experimental setup.
A simple method is proposed to construct the spectral zeta functions required for calculating the electromagnetic vacuum energy with boundary conditions given on a sphere or on an infinite cylinder. When calculating the Casimir energy in this approach no exact divergencies appear and no renormalization is needed. The starting point of the consideration is the representation of the zeta functions in terms of contour integral, further the uniform asymptotic expansion of the Bessel function is essentially used. After the analytic continuation, needed for calculating the Casimir energy, the zeta functions are presented as infinite series containing the Riemann zeta function with rapidly falling down terms. The spectral zeta functions are constructed exactly for a material ball and infinite cylinder placed in an uniform endless medium under the condition that the velocity of light does not change when crossing the interface. As a special case, perfectly conducting spherical and cylindrical shells are also considered in the same line. In this approach one succeeds, specifically, in justifying, in mathematically rigorous way, the appearance of the contribution to the Casimir energy for cylinder which is proportional to $\ln (2π)$.
We develop a formalism for the calculation of the ground state energy of a spinor field in the background of a cylindrically symmetric magnetic field. The energy is expressed in terms of the Jost function of the associated scattering problem. Uniform asymptotic expansions needed are obtained from the Lippmann-Schwinger equation. The general results derived are applied to the background of a finite radius flux tube with a homogeneous magnetic field inside and the ground state energy is calculated numerically as a function of the radius and the flux. It turns out to be negative, remaining smaller by a factor of $α$ than the classical energy of the background except for very small values of the radius which are outside the range of applicability of QED.
We analyse the ultraviolet divergencies in the ground state energy for a penetrable sphere and a dielectric ball. We argue that for massless fields subtraction of the ``empty space'' or the ``unbounded medium'' contribution is not enough to make the ground state energy finite whenever the heat kernel coefficient $a_2$ is not zero. It turns out that $a_2\ne 0$ for a penetrable sphere, a general dielectric background and the dielectric ball. To our surprise, for more singular configurations, as in the presence of sharp boundaries, the heat kernel coefficients behave to some extend better than in the corresponding smooth cases, making, for instance, the dilute dielectric ball a well defined problem.
We calculate the ground state energy of a massive scalar field in the background of a cosmic string of finite thickness (Gott-Hiscock metric). Using zeta functional regularization we discuss the renormalization and the relevant heat kernel coefficients in detail. The finite (non local) part of the ground state energy is calculated in 2+1 dimensions in the approximation of a small mass density of the string. By a numerical calculation it is shown to vanish as a function of the radius of the string and of the parameter $ξ$ of the nonconformal coupling.
Phase transitions induced by high temperatures and strong magnetic fields are investigated in the Standard model. The consistent effective potential including the one-loop and ring diagram contributions is calculated and investigated for the wide range of the fields, temperatures and Higgs boson mass $m_H$. All other particles - fermions and bosons - are taken into account with actual values of their masses. This effective potential is real at sufficiently high temperatures . It is shown that symmetry restoration is a first type phase transition for $m_H < 70 $ Gev . For heavier Higgs particles and the field strengths $H > 0.1 \cdot 10^{24} G $ the local electroweak minimum could not be realized at all. Hence, the upper limit on the Higgs mass as well as the limit on the field strengths in the phase transition epoch follow.
The leading radiative correction to the Casimir energy for two parallel penetrable mirrors is calculated within QED perturbation theory. It is found to be of the order $α$ like the known radiative correction for ideally reflecting mirrors from which it differs only by a monotonic, powerlike function of the frequency at which the mirrors become transparent. This shows that the $O(α^2)$ radiative correction calculated recently by Kong and Ravndal for ideally reflecting mirrors on the basis of effective field theory methods remains subleading even for the physical case of penetrable mirrors.
The Casimir force is calculated in the configuration of a spherical lens and a disc of finite radius covered by $Cu$ and $Au$ thin layers which was used in a recent experiment. The correction to the Casimir force due to finiteness of the disc radius is shown to be negligible. Also the corrections are discussed due to the finite conductivity, large-scale and short-scale deviations from the perfect shape of the bounding surfaces and the temperature correction. They were found to be essential when confronting the theoretical results with experimental data. Both Yukawa-type and power-law hypothetical forces are computed which may act in the configuration under consideration due to the exchange of light and/or massless elementary particles between the atoms of the lens and the disc. New constraints on the constants of these forces are determined which follow from the fact that they were not observed within the limits of experimental errors. For Yukawa-type forces the new constraints are up to 30 times stronger than the best ones known up today. A possible improvement of experimental parameters is proposed which gives the possibility to strengthen constraints on Yukawa-type interactions up to $10^4$ times and on power-law interactions up to several hundred times.
In the present paper we study the Faddeev-Popov path integral quantization of electrodynamics in an inhomogenious dielectric medium. We quantize all polarizations of the photons and introduce the corresponding ghost fields. Using the heat kernel technique, we express the heat kernel coefficients in terms of the dielectricity $ε(x)$ and calculate the ultra violet divergent terms in the effective action. No cancellation between ghosts and "non-physical" degrees of freedom of the photon is observed.
The vacuum energies corresponding to massive Dirac fields with the boundary conditions of the MIT bag model are obtained. The calculations are done with the fields occupying the regions inside and outside the bag, separately. The renormalization procedure for each of the situations is studied in detail, in particular the differences occurring with respect to the case when the field extends over the whole space. The final result contains several constants undergoing renormalization, which can be determined only experimentally. The non-trivial finite parts which appear in the massive case are found exactly, providing a precise determination of the complete, renormalized zero-point energy for the first time, in the fermionic case. The vacuum energy behaves like inverse powers of the mass for large masses.
We calculate the constraints on the constants of hypothetical long-range interactions which follow from the recent measurement of the Casimir force. A comparison with previous constraints is given. The new constraints are up to a factor of 3000 stronger in some parameter regions .
The vacuum energy of a scalar field in a spherically symmetric background field is considered. It is expressed through the Jost function of the corresponding scattering problem. The renormalization is discussed in detail and performed using the uniform asymptotic expansion of the Jost function. The method is demonstrated in a simple explicit example.
The Casimir energy corresponding to a massive scalar field with Dirichlet boundary conditions on a spherical bag is obtained. The field is considered, separately, inside and outside the bag. The renormalization procedure that is necessary to apply in each situation is studied in detail, in particular the differences occurring with respect to the case when the field occupies the whole space. The final result contains several constants that experience renormalization and can be determined only experimentally. The non-trivial finite parts that appear in the massive case are found exactly, providing a precise determination of the complete, renormalized zero-point energy for the first time.
We consider zeta functions and heat-kernel expansions on the bounded, generalized cone in arbitrary dimensions using an improved calculational technique. The specific case of a global monopole is analysed in detail and some restrictions thereby placed on the $A_{5/2}$ coefficient. The computation of functional determinants is also addressed. General formulas are given and known results are incidentally, and rapidly, reproduced.
The mode properties for spectral and mixed boundary conditions for massless spin-half fields are derived for the $d$--ball. The corresponding functional determinants and heat-kernel coefficients are presented, the latter as polynomials in $d$.
We present a direct approach for the calculation of functional determinants of the Laplace operator on balls. Dirichlet and Robin boundary conditions are considered. Using this approach, formulas for any value of the dimension, $D$, of the ball, can be obtained quite easily. Explicit results are presented here for dimensions $D=2,3,4,5$ and $6$.
We present a very quick and powerful method for the calculation of heat-kernel coefficients. It makes use of rather common ideas, as integral representations of the spectral sum, Mellin transforms, non-trivial commutation of series and integrals and skilful analytic continuation of zeta functions on the complex plane. We apply our method to the case of the heat-kernel expansion of the Laplace operator on a $D$-dimensional ball with either Dirichlet, Neumann or, in general, Robin boundary conditions. The final formulas are quite simple. Using this case as an example, we illustrate in detail our scheme ---which serves for the calculation of an (in principle) arbitrary number of heat-kernel coefficients in any situation when the basis functions are known. We provide a complete list of new results for the coefficients $B_3,...,B_{10}$, corresponding to the $D$-dimensional ball with all the mentioned boundary conditions and $D=3,4,5$.