Speaker
Description
The measurement of the Casimir Effect at a large distance, although challenging, is very interesting for the possible physical implications that stream from it. A successful measurement would allow to rule out or confirm Chameleon models as an explanation for dark energy; to put the strongest constraints on hypothetical long-range forces at the considered distances; to solve definitely the controversial problem of the thermal Casimir effect and its deep and fundamental implications on the difference between thermal and virtual photons. We propose to use a torsion pendulum to measure the force between macroscopic, centimeter size, flat metallic plates at a distance of about 10 microns. Experimental setup and discussion on how to cope with crucial aspects like absolute distance measurement and plates parallelism are discussed. We also show how modulation at a proper frequency and amplitude of the plate separation can help in disentangling the contribution of the different forces acting at such short distances.
