Abstract

Vacuum field fluctuations exert radiation pressure on scatterers in quantum vacuum. For a pair of mirrors at rest this effect is well known as Casimir effect. When a mirror is moving vacuum radiation pressure leads to a dissipative force which opposes itself to the mirrors motion, arising as soon as the mirror has a non-uniform acceleration. Accordingly the electromagnetic field remains not in the vacuum state but photons are emitted by the scatterer into vacuum. This motion-induced radiation and the associated radiation reaction force are dissipative effects related to motion in quantum vacuum, although motion has no further reference than vacuum itself. Since these effects challenge the principle of relativity of motion in vacuum, it would be very important to obtain experimental evidence for them.

© 1998 IEEE