Casimir stresses of the dielectric ball: Inhomogeneity and divergences

Puzzles are still preventing people from further understanding and manipulating the Casimir interaction in spherical systems. Here we investigate the behaviors of Casimir stresses in the system consisting of a ball immersed in the background, emphasizing the roles of spherical geometry and inhomogeneity. Spherical modes are employed to evaluate Green’s dyadic and thus the Casimir stresses. The inhomogeneity of the media essentially modifies the wave form of the spherical mode, leading to significant impacts on the Casimir stresses, especially when far away from the surface of the ball. As the surface approached, the divergence (surface divergence) in Casimir stresses is seen. For both homogeneous and inhomogeneous cases, the leading behaviors (zero for the radial component, and inverse quantic order of distance for the transverse components) of Casimir stresses are exactly the same as those for the corresponding planar homogeneous wall, involving only properties of media at the surface and reflecting no information about the spherical geometry and the inhomogeneity, which implies the local nature. The other surface divergences are influenced by the spherical geometry and for the transverse component always weaker than the planar contribution. The general impacts from the inhomogeneity of media to the surface divergences are also shown. The inhomogeneity will further soften the surface divergence. For two touching media with permittivities and permeabilities equal up to a high enough order of their expansion over the distance to the surface, surface divergences may disappear together with the interaction Casimir stresses. Other factors, such as the refractivity and anisotropy, are also included, which may raise considerable complexities, but typically not related to divergences. Perspectives on the renormalization of the surface divergence are briefly outlined. Published by the American Physical Society 2024