We calculated the stress of the quantum vacuum, the Casimir stress, in a spherically symmetric medium, Maxwell’s fish eye, surrounded by a perfect mirror and derived an exact analytic solution. Our solution questions the idea that the Casimir force of a spherical mirror is repulsive—we found an attractive stress in the medium that diverges at the mirror.

• Received 3 July 2011

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.84.081701