Recalculations of Long Range Van der Waals Potentials

摘要

The long range Van der Waals forces between a particle and a conducting wall, and between two polarizable particles are calculated including contributions from both electric and magnetic polarizabilities. The techniques applied here of using quantum zero-point energy or semi-classical force and energy expressions have been used previously only for the case of purely electrically polarizable particles. A particle with an induced magnetic dipole moment may be repelled from a conducting wall while one with an induced electric dipole moment is attracted. The general retarded two-particle Van der Waals potential obtained is identical with that found by Feinberg and Sucher from dispersion theoretic calculations.