We study the Casimir force between a perfectly conducting and an infinitely permeable plate with the radiation pressure approach, used by earlier authors for the case of two perfectly conducting plates. This method illustrates in a very simple context how a repulsive force arises as a consequence of the redistribution of the vacuum-field modes corresponding to specific boundary conditions. We show that the result is independent of the cutoff function used for regularization.

This content is only available via PDF.
AAPT members receive access to the American Journal of Physics and The Physics Teacher as a member benefit. To learn more about this member benefit and becoming an AAPT member, visit the Joining AAPT page.