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Stability is an important concept in oscillation. If an equilibrium point is stable, a slight disturbance of an object that is initially at the stable equilibrium point will cause the object to oscillate around that point. For an unstable equilibrium point, if the object is disturbed slightly, it will not return to the equilibrium point. There are three conditions for equilibrium points—stable, unstable, and half-stable. A half-stable equilibrium point is also unstable, but is named so because...
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An Analog Macroscopic Technique for Studying Molecular Hydrodynamic Processes in Dense Gases and Liquids
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Published on: December 4, 2017

Constraints on stable equilibria with fluctuation-induced (Casimir) forces.

Sahand Jamal Rahi1, Mehran Kardar, Thorsten Emig

  • 1Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.

Physical Review Letters
|September 28, 2010
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Levitation using fluctuation-induced forces is impossible. Both classical thermal fluctuations and quantum vacuum fluctuations destabilize object arrangements, preventing stable levitation for common materials.

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Area of Science:

  • Physics
  • Materials Science
  • Thermodynamics

Background:

  • Earnshaw's theorem typically prohibits stable static levitation using electrostatic forces.
  • Thermal and quantum fluctuations are known to influence systems at microscopic and macroscopic scales.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate if fluctuation-induced forces can enable stable levitation.
  • To extend Earnshaw's theorem by incorporating thermal and quantum fluctuations.

Main Methods:

  • Analysis of classical objects with fixed and mobile charges at finite temperatures.
  • Examination of quantum fluctuations (Casimir/van der Waals forces) on object equilibrium.

Main Results:

  • Any spatial arrangement of classical objects with internal charges is unstable to perturbations, even with thermal fluctuations.
  • Equilibrium positions are unstable under quantum fluctuation forces if object permittivities differ from the medium.

Conclusions:

  • Levitation via fluctuation-induced forces is not achievable for classical or quantum systems under the studied conditions.
  • The findings suggest inherent instability in systems subjected to both thermal and quantum fluctuations, challenging possibilities for stable levitation.