Vacuum fluctuations in the presence of nonlinear boundary conditions

Abstract

We consider a system consisting of a quantum, massless, real scalar field, in the presence of nonlinear mirrors: infinite parallel planes, upon which the field satisfies nonlinear boundary conditions. These may appear, for example, in metamaterials having nonlinear response functions. The boundary conditions are implemented by nonquadratic interaction vertices, strictly localized on the mirrors. By using the appropriate perturbative expansions, we obtain approximate expressions for the Casimir energy corresponding to weak coupling, regarding the strength of the interaction terms. We also comment on an alternative expansion scheme that may be useful when the weak coupling expansion is not justified.