Seeking the Casimir energy

Since its first description in 1948, the Casimir effect has been studied extensively. Standard arguments for its existence hinge on the elimination of certain modes of the electromagnetic field because of the boundary conditions in the Casimir cavity. As such, it has been suggested that the ground state energy of the vacuum within the cavity may be reduced compared to the value outside. Could this have an effect on physical phenomena within the cavity? We study this Casimir energy and probe whether the critical temperature [Formula: see text] of a superconductor is altered when it is placed in the cavity. We do not detect any change in [Formula: see text] larger than 12[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]K, but theoretically expect a change on the order of 0.025[Formula: see text][Formula: see text]K, roughly 1000 times lower than our achieved sensitivity.