Casimir force on an interacting Bose-Einstein condensate

Abstract

We have presented an analytic theory for the Casimir force on a Bose-Einstein condensate which is confined between two parallel plates. We have considered Dirichlet boundary conditions for the condensate wavefunction as well as for the phonon field. We have shown that the condensate wavefunction (which obeys the Gross-Pitaevskii equation) is responsible for the mean field part of the Casimir force, which usually dominates over the quantum (fluctuations) part of the Casimir force. © 2010 IOP Publishing Ltd.