Lattice-fermionic Casimir effect and topological insulators

Abstract

The Casimir effect arises from the zero-point energy of particles in momentum space deformed by the existence of two parallel plates. For degrees of freedom on the lattice, its energy-momentum dispersion is determined so as to keep a periodicity within the Brillouin zone, so that its Casimir effect is modified. We study the properties of Casimir effect for lattice fermions, such as the naive fermion, Wilson fermion, and overlap fermion based on the Möbius domain-wall fermion formulation, in the 1+1-, 2+1-, and 3+1-dimensional space-time with the periodic or antiperiodic boundary condition. An oscillatory behavior of Casimir energy between odd and even lattice size is induced by the contribution of ultraviolet-momentum (doubler) modes, which realizes in the naive fermion, Wilson fermion in a negative mass, and overlap fermions with a large domain-wall height. Our findings can be experimentally observed in condensed matter systems such as topological insulators and also numerically measured in lattice simulations.