Temperature dependence of the Casimir effect between metallic mirrors

Cyriaque Genet, Astrid Lambrecht, Serge Reynaud

Published 2000-02-23Version 1

We calculate the Casimir force and free energy for plane metallic mirrors at non-zero temperature. Numerical evaluations are given with temperature and conductivity effects treated simultaneously. The results are compared with the approximation where both effects are treated independently and the corrections simply multiplied. The deviation between the exact and approximated results takes the form of a temperature dependent function for which an analytical expression is given. The knowledge of this function allows simple and accurate estimations at the % level.