Experimental implications of static and dynamic casimir effect instabilities

Abstract

When fluctuating electromagnetic fields in vacuum couple strongly with matter, under certain conditions, thermodynamic instability can arise. A general theoretical framework which addresses this problem is derived, in this thesis. A deep connection is shown to exist between scattering phase shifts', bound states' and `thermodynamic instabilities'. The emergence of such instability in a ferroelectric composed of spin zero particles, interacting strongly with photons via electric dipole interactions, is thoroughly examined. When the field modes are modulated, under certain resonant conditions, theory predicts spontaneous generation of photons from the vacuum. The number of photons as predicted by such theories, diverge exponentially with the modulation. A general theoretical formalism which resolves this instability is provided in the thesis. The proposed experiment to detect dynamic Casimir effect, is modeled within this framework, and the number of photons that would be produced in the experiment is estimated.