Anomalies in Electrostatic Calibrations for the Measurement of the Casimir Force in a Sphere-Plane Geometry

Authors

W. J. Kim, Dartmouth College
M. Brown-Hayes, Dartmouth CollegeFollow
D. A.R. Dalvit, Los Alamos National LaboratoryFollow
J. H. Brownell, Dartmouth CollegeFollow
R. Onofrio, Dartmouth College

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

12-1-2008

Publication Title

Physical Review A - Atomic, Molecular, and Optical Physics

Department

Department of Physics and Astronomy

Abstract

We have performed precision electrostatic calibrations in the sphere-plane geometry, and observed anomalous behavior. Namely, the scaling exponent of the electrostatic signal with distance was found to be smaller than expected on the basis of the pure Coulombian contribution, and the residual potential found to be distance dependent. We argue that these findings affect the accuracy of the electrostatic calibrations and invite reanalysis of previous determinations of the Casimir force.

DOI

10.1103/PhysRevA.78.020101

Dartmouth Digital Commons Citation

Kim, W. J.; Brown-Hayes, M.; Dalvit, D. A.R.; Brownell, J. H.; and Onofrio, R., "Anomalies in Electrostatic Calibrations for the Measurement of the Casimir Force in a Sphere-Plane Geometry" (2008). Dartmouth Scholarship. 2540.
https://digitalcommons.dartmouth.edu/facoa/2540