Biomedical subjects

Holger Gies

Publications and source records attributed to Holger Gies.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

Casimir edge effects.

We compute Casimir forces in open geometries with edges, involving parallel as well as perpendicular semi-infinite plates. We focus on Casimir configurations which are governed by a unique dimensional scaling law with a universal coefficient. With the aid of worldline numerics, we determine this coefficient for various geometries for the case of scalar-field fluctuations with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Our results facilitate an estimate of the systematic error induced by the edges of finite plates, for instance, in a standard parallel-plate experiment. The Casimir edge effects for this case can be reformulated as an increase of the effective area of the configuration.

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PubMed2006

Polarized light propagating in a magnetic field as a probe for millicharged fermions.

Possible extensions of the standard model of particle physics suggest the existence of particles with small, unquantized electric charge. Photon-initiated pair production of millicharged fermions in a magnetic field would manifest itself as a vacuum magnetic (VM) dichroism. We show that laser polarization experiments searching for this effect yield, in the mass range below 0.1 eV, much stronger constraints on millicharged fermions than previous laboratory searches. VM birefringence due to virtual pair production gives a slightly better constraint for masses between 0.1 and a few eV. We comment on the possibility that the VM dichroism observed by PVLAS arises from pair production of such millicharged fermions rather than from single production of axionlike particles. Such a scenario can be confirmed or firmly excluded by a search for invisible decays of orthopositronium with a branching-fraction sensitivity of about 10(-9).

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PubMed2006

Casimir effect for curved geometries: proximity-force-approximation validity limits.

We compute Casimir interaction energies for the sphere-plate and cylinder-plate configuration induced by scalar-field fluctuations with Dirichlet boundary conditions. Based on a high-precision calculation using world-line numerics, we quantitatively determine the validity bounds of the proximity-force approximation (PFA) on which the comparison between all corresponding experiments and theory are based. We observe the quantitative failure of the PFA on the 1% level for a curvature parameter a/R>0.00755. Even qualitatively, the PFA fails to predict reliably the correct sign of genuine Casimir curvature effects. We conclude that data analysis of future experiments aiming at a precision of 0.1% must no longer be based on the PFA.

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PubMed2004

Renormalization flow of QED.

We investigate textbook QED in the framework of the exact renormalization group. In the strong-coupling region, we study the influence of fluctuation-induced photonic and fermionic self-interactions on the nonperturbative running of the gauge coupling. Our findings confirm the triviality hypothesis of complete charge screening if the ultraviolet cutoff is sent to infinity. Though the Landau pole does not belong to the physical coupling domain owing to spontaneous chiral-symmetry-breaking (chiSB), the theory predicts a scale of maximal UV extension of the same order as the Landau pole scale. In addition, we verify that the chiSB phase of the theory which is characterized by a light fermion and a Goldstone boson also has a trivial Yukawa coupling.

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