Zero Point Energy Advances

Dr. Thorsten Ludwig

President
German Assoziation for Space Energy
DVR
Bouchéstr. 12
12435 Berlin
dvr@onlinehome.de

COFE 2
Sep 23 2006
 Content

• Introduction
– History
– Basic concepts
• Current research and advances
QFEXT03/05 (quantum field theory under
the influence of external conditions)
– Theory
– Experiment

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 History of ZPE

• Statistical physics
En = n ω
• Plank 1900 1
• Plank 1912 En = ( n + ) ω
• Einstein and Stern 2
• Nerst 1916
• Bohr, Heisenberg 1924
∆x ∆p ≥
2
• Schwinger 1947
π 2
c
• Casimir 1948 Fcas =− ⋅ 4
240 L
COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances
Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Uncertainty Princible

• Uncertainty of Time and Energy

∆E ∆t ≤
2
• Particle-wave duality
• Zero point energy

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Zero Point Energy

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Quantum Field Theory
QFT

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Vacuum state

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 ZPE Experiments

• Lamb shift
• Casimir effect
• Electron charge
• Fine-structure constant in electron-
electron scattering
• Magnetic ZPE near 0 K in neutron
scattering

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 ZPE in modern Physics
• Any interaction by exchange of virtual Bosons

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 High Energy Physics
• Of daily need in accalerators

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Casimir Effect
π2 c
• Casimir Force : Fcas =− ⋅ 4
240 L

Virtual photons metal plates

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Casimir Effect

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Quantum Vacuum

QFT: quantum fluctuations Boundary conditions: Casimir effect

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Precision Measurments

• Lamoraux (1997)
• Mohideen
• Iannuzzi
• MacLay
• Decca
• Onofrio

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Decca MEMS

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Präzisionsexperiment
Ricardo S. Decca
Department of Physics, IUPUI

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Experimental Setup

• Experimental set-up
for measurements of
the Casimir–Lifshitz
force between a
sphere and a plate.
• Insets: (a) an image
of a metallized sphere
above the top plate of
the microtorsional
balance
COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances
Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Mohideen Setup

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Mohideen results

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances
Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Theory developmets

• Roughness correction
• Temperature
• Finite reflectivity
• Real materials
• New methods to
calculated Casimir
forces and ZPE
– Approximative
– Optical, bulk methods

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Temperature correction and
real metal mirrors

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Real Casimir Force

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances
Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances
Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Flat-Flat Casimir, Grenoble

• Torsional balance
under construction
at ILL, Grenoble.
• accuracy in the
parallelism down
to a few times
10−7 radians.

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Nanocase - Nano-scale machines
exploiting the Casimir Force
• Duration
– 36 months
• Project costs
– € 799 991
• UK: University of Leicester • EU funding
– Prof. Chris Binns – € 799 991
– Dept. of Physics and
• Project reference
Astronomy,
– E-mail: cb12@le.ac.uk UK: – Contract No. 12142 (NEST)
University of Birmingham • Web: http://www.cordis.lu/nest
• France: Université Pierre et
Marie Curie
• Sweden: Linköping University

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Birmingham Precision Exp.

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Birmingham Precision Exp.

• picture

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 The Cosmological
Constant Problem
For a pioneering review on this problem see S. Weinberg, Rev. Mod. Phys. 61, 1 (1989).
For more recent and detailed reviews see V. Sahni and A. Starobinsky, Int. J. Mod. Phys.
D 9, 373 (2000), astro-ph/9904398; N. Straumann, The history of the cosmological
constant problem gr-qc/0208027; T.Padmanabhan, Phys.Rept. 380, 235 (2003),
hep-th/0212290.

• At the Planck era Λ C ≈ 10 71 GeV 4

•Recent measures

−47 4
Λ C ≈ 10 GeV

A factor of 10118
COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances
Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Aladin

•Measuring energy variations in a rigid cavity

• Demonstrating the first transition influenced by vacuum

fluctuations

• Contribute to clarify the effect of the Zero frequency

transverse mode

• Open a (very) long term R&D on the possibility to weight

vacuum fluctuations

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Measurement method

Au Casimir lowers the free energy of the

system
SiO2 A = 1 cm2
Be The change of free energy in the transition due to condensation is
Comparable with change of free energy due to Casimir effect
1 π2 c
= µ 0 H c V ≈ 10 −14 J
2
∆F Be
cond =E Be
cond
EC = A ≈ 4 ⋅10 −8 J
2 720 L3

Measured by measuring the thermodinamical critical field Hc

V
µ 0 H c 2 = Fcav
(n)
(T ,τ , d , s ) − Fcav
(s)
(T ,τ , d , s ) = V ∆ f (T ) + ∆ η E (T ) EC(id )
2
The critical field Hc is measured and compared with critical field of simple
film. Statistic is done with different dielectric thickness and film thickness.
COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances
Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 MIR: an experiment for the measurement of the
dynamical Casimir effect

G. Ruoso
INFN - Laboratori
COFE 2 Nazionali di Legnaro
Sep 23 2006
 Detailed set-up
Working temperature
1 ­ 8  K

Complete freeze out of 
carriers in 
semiconductor

No background noise 
from thermal photons

Cavity resonance in the 
range 2 ­ 3 GHz

Semiconductor 
thickness ~ 1 mm

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 The apparatus

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Inside the cryostat

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 QFEXT

• QFEXT05: Free download of all paper

(few days more)
– http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/0305-4470/39/21
• QFEXT03 Oklahoma Rinton Press
– http://www.nhn.ou.edu/~milton/qfext03/
• Next QFEXT07 Leipzig
– http://www.physik.uni-leipzig.de /~bordag
/QFEXT071stAnnouncement.htm

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 References
• (1) H.B.G Casimir, Proc. Kon. Nederl. Akad. Wet., 51, (1948), 793

• (2) P.W. Milonni, Phys. Rev. A, 38, (1988), 1621

• (3) M. Bordag, U. Mohideen, V.M. Mostepanenko, Phys. Rep., 353, (2001), 1

• (4) S.K. Lamoreaux, Phys. Rev. Lett., 78, (1997), 5

• (5) U. Mohideen, A. Roy, Phys. Rev. Lett., 81, (1998), 4549

• (6) B.W. Harris, F. Chen, U. Mohideen, Phys. Rev. A, 62, (2000), 052109

• (7) R.S. Decca, D. Lopez, E. Fishbach, D.E. Krause, Phys. Rev. Lett., 91, (2003),
050402

• (8) T. Ederth, Phys. Rev. A, 62, (2000), 062104

• (9) A. Lambrecht and S. Reynaud, The European Physical Journal, 8, (2000), 318

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig
 Thank you for your attention

•Dr. Thorsten Ludwig

•President
•German Assoziation for Space Energy
•DVR

•Bouchéstr. 12
•Haus 6
•12435 Berlin
•dvr@onlinehome.de

COFE 2 Zero Point Energy Advances

Sep 23 2006 Dr. Thorsten Ludwig