Van der Waals forces between thin cylinders

Abstract

We discuss the van der Waals force between two long thin conducting cylinders; in particular we show that conduction gives rise to a longer range force than the usual A-5 result for dielectric cylinders. Some difficulties arising in studies of the interaction of long conjugated molecules are discussed and resolved. We further show that at nonzero temperature, there is an entropie contribution to the free energy of even longer range than the ground state interaction. Finally, we note that these forces are not attenuated at long range by retardation. Show more