Negative entropies in Casimir and Casimir‐Polder interactions

Abstract

It has been increasingly becoming clear that Casimir and Casimir‐Polder entropies may be negative in certain regions of temperature and separation. In fact, the occurrence of negative entropy seems to be a nearly ubiquitous phenomenon. This is most highlighted in the quantum vacuum interaction of a nanoparticle with a conducting plate or between two nanoparticles. It has been argued that this phenomenon does not violate physical intuition, since the total entropy, including the self‐entropies of the plate and the nanoparticle, should be positive. New calculations, in fact, seem to bear this out at least in certain cases.