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Informal Pizza SeminarEffective actions and precision calculations of the Casimir effectYashar AghababaieMcGillThe Casimir effect is the attractive force exerted between two parallel conducting plates. This force is a physical effect mediated by quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. Calculations of precision one-loop corrections to this effect have recently become interesting because of advances in experimental methods, and because of the parellels with brane-world models. Surprisingly, the result of this calculation has attracted controversy, with some groups even claiming that effective field theory fails in this context. In this talk I will describe the effective operators required to describe physics in the presence of the parallel conducting plates. The matching calculation will be performed with a fun little electrostatics problem. I will then show that this effective theory correctly reproduces the correction to the Casimir effect.
Tuesday, March 2nd 2004, 13:00
Ernest Rutherford Physics Building, room 326 |