This paper studies two perfectly conducting parallel plates in the weakgravitational field on the surface of the Earth. Since the appropriate lineelement, to first order in the constant gravity acceleration g, is precisely ofthe Rindler type, we can exploit the formalism for studying Feynman Greenfunctions in Rindler spacetime. Our analysis does not reduce theelectromagnetic potential to the transverse part before quantization. It isinstead fully covariant and well suited for obtaining all components of theregularized and renormalized energy-momentum tensor to arbitrary order in thegravity acceleration g. The general structure of the calculation is thereforeelucidated, and the components of the Maxwell energy-momentum tensor areevaluated up to second order in g, improving a previous analysis by the authorsand correcting their old first-order formula for the Casimir energy.
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