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arXiv · 2011.10991

Quasi-local Casimir energy and vacuum buoyancy in a weak gravitational field

Francesco Sorge
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Abstract

Casimir energy in presence of a weak gravitational field is discussed taking into account the issues related to energy and its conservation in a curved background. It is well-known that there are inherent difficulties in defining energy in General Relativity, essentially due to its non-localizability. Using the concept of quasi-local mass and energy, it is shown that it is possible to attribute a Tolman mass to a massless scalar field confined to a Casimir cavity. Such non-local mass coincides - as expected - with the Casimir energy. The present approach offers an alternative derivation of the vacuum buoyancy force acting on a Casimir cavity, confirming the results presented by Calloni {\em et al.} in a series of papers devoted to explore the possibility of experimentally weighting the Casimir vacuum (the so-called Archimedes Experiment).

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Francesco Sorge. 2020-11-22. Quasi-local Casimir energy and vacuum buoyancy in a weak gravitational field. https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382%2Fabc666

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