Conformal field theory of critical Casimir interactions in 2D

Abstract

Thermal fluctuations of a critical system induce long-ranged Casimir forces between objects that couple to the underlying field. For two-dimensional (2D) conformal field theories (CFT) we derive an exact result for the Casimir interaction between two objects of arbitrary shape, in terms of 1) the free energy of a circular ring whose radii are determined by the mutual capacitance of two conductors with the objects' shape; and 2) a purely geometric energy that is proportional to the conformal charge of the CFT, but otherwise super-universal in that it depends only on the shapes and is independent of boundary conditions and other details.