Recent developments in the Casimir effect

Abstract

In this paper I review various developments in the past year concerning quantum vacuum energy, the Casimir effect. In particular, there has been continuing controversy surrounding the temperature correction to the Lifshitz formula for the Casimir force between real materials, be they metals or semiconductors. Consensus has emerged as to how Casimir energy accelerates in a weak gravitational field; quantum vacuum energy, including the divergent parts which renormalize the masses of the Casimir plates, accelerates indeed according to the equivalence principle. Significant development has been forthcoming in applying the multiple scattering formalism to describe the interaction between nontrivial objects. In weak coupling, closed-form expressions for the Casimir force between the bodies, which for example reveal significant discrepancies from the naive proximity force approximation, can be achieved in many cases.