RUI: Casimir Forces From Scattering Theory

RUI：散射理论中的卡西米尔力

• 批准号: 1520293
• 负责人: Noah Graham
• 金额: $ 12万
• 依托单位: Middlebury College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-08-15 至 2018-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1520293&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; Casimir; Forces; Scattering; Theory

This award funds the research activities of Professor Noah Graham at Middlebury College. Microelectromechanical devices --- tiny machines that can be embedded within an integrated circuit chip --- can trigger car airbags in a collision, detect the movement of a video-game controller or the orientation of a smartphone, sense low air pressure in a car tire, and provide the feedback necessary to stabilize car suspensions and flying drones. As these devices shrink toward sizes of a micron or smaller, a special quantum-mechanical force called the Casimir force will begin to play an important role in their design and function. In contrast to the more familiar electric attraction and repulsion between opposite and like charges, the Casimir force arises from quantum-mechanical fluctuations inherent in Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle. While the physical mechanism underlying the Casimir force has been well understood for many years, until recently precise calculations were only possible for the most elementary examples. New techniques, in which the Casimir force is expressed in terms of information about the reflection of light from each individual object on which the force is acting, have greatly expanded the range of potential applications. The research supported by this grant will formulate and implement numerical calculations of this scattering data, making it possible to calculate Casimir forces in a broad range of systems relevant to experimental physics and nanotechnology. These general-purpose computational tools will also be applicable to other problems in science and engineering. Research in this area thus advances the national interest by promoting the progress of science with many potential technological implications. And because this approach is centered around fundamental concepts in quantum mechanics and electromagnetism, it will be possible for undergraduate students to make meaningful contributions to this research at the same time as they build scientific and computational skills that will serve them well in graduate or professional work, both within physics and across a wide range of fields in science and engineering.The technical approach to this problem will be based on the variable phase method, which this research program is applying for the first time to electromagnetic scattering. High-performance parallel computation will make it possible to go beyond objects with a high degree of symmetry to calculate full T-matrices in multichannel scattering, for materials with position- and frequency-dependent dielectric response. These tools will then be applied to calculations of Casimir forces in cases of current experimental interest, such as dielectric gratings with deep corrugations, for which existing techniques based on the Rayleigh expansion are insufficient.

该奖项为米德尔伯里学院的诺亚·格雷厄姆教授的研究活动提供资金。 微电机机械设备 - 可以嵌入在集成电路芯片中的微型机器 - 可以触发碰撞中的汽车安全气囊，检测到视频游戏控制器或智能手机方向的运动，感知汽车轮胎中的低气压，并提供稳定汽车悬架和飞行无人机的反馈。 当这些设备朝着微米或较小的尺寸缩小时，一种称为Casimir力的特殊量子力量将开始在其设计和功能中发挥重要作用。 与相反的电荷之间更熟悉的电吸引力和排斥相反，Casimir力是由海森伯格不确定性原理固有的量子力学波动引起的。 虽然Casimir力的物理机制已被广泛理解了很多年，但直到最近才能为大多数基本示例进行精确的计算。 新技术是根据对力量作用的每个对象反射的信息来表达的，从而大大扩展了潜在应用的范围。 该赠款支持的研究将对此散射数据进行制定和实施数值计算，从而可以在与实验物理学和纳米技术相关的广泛系统中计算Casimir力。这些通用计算工具也将适用于科学和工程学中的其他问题。 因此，该领域的研究通过许多潜在的技术影响来促进科学的进步，从而促进了国家利益。 而且，由于这种方法集中在量子力学和电磁主义方面的基本概念围绕，因此，本科生可以同时对这项研究做出有意义的贡献，因为他们在培养科学或专业工作中就可以在物理学中以及对这种研究的范围进行研究。电磁散射。 高性能并行计算将使具有高度对称性的对象超越多通道散射中的完整T型膜，对于具有位置和频率依赖性介电响应的材料。 然后，这些工具将应用于当前实验兴趣的情况下，Casimir力量的计算，例如带有深层波纹的介电光栅，基于雷利扩张的现有技术不足。