Fermionic Casimir densities in toroidally compactified spacetimes with applications to nanotubes

S. Bellucci and A. A. Saharian
Phys. Rev. D 79, 085019 – Published 24 April 2009

Abstract

Fermionic condensate and the vacuum expectation values of the energy-momentum tensor are investigated for a massive spinor field in higher-dimensional spacetimes with an arbitrary number of toroidally compactified spatial dimensions. By using the Abel-Plana summation formula and the zeta function technique we present the vacuum expectation values in two different forms. Applications of the general formulas to cylindrical and toroidal carbon nanotubes are given. We show that the topological Casimir energy is positive for metallic cylindrical nanotubes and is negative for semiconducting ones. The toroidal compactification of a cylindrical nanotube along its axis increases the Casimir energy for metallic-type (periodic) boundary conditions along its axis and decreases the Casimir energy for the semiconducting-type compactifications.

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  • Received 27 March 2009

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.79.085019

©2009 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

S. Bellucci1,* and A. A. Saharian2,†

  • 1INFN, Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati, Via Enrico Fermi 40, 00044 Frascati, Italy
  • 2Department of Physics, Yerevan State University, 1 Alex Manoogian Street, 0025 Yerevan, Armenia

  • *bellucci@lnf.infn.it
  • saharian@ictp.it

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Issue

Vol. 79, Iss. 8 — 15 April 2009

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