The vacuum energy with non-ideal boundary conditions via an approximate functional equation

Abstract: We discuss the vacuum energy of a quantized scalar field in the presence of classical surfaces, defining bounded domains $\Omega \subset {\mathbb{R}}^{d}$, where the field satisfies ideal or non-ideal boundary conditions. For the electromagnetic case, this situation describes the conductivity correction to the zero-point energy. Using an analytic regularization procedure, we obtain the vacuum energy for a massless scalar field at zero temperature in the presence of a slab geometry $\Omega=\mathbb R^{d-1}\times[0, L]$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions. To discuss the case of non-ideal boundary conditions, we employ an asymptotic expansion, based on an approximate functional equation for the Riemann zeta-function, where finite sums outside their original domain of convergence are defined. Finally, to obtain the Casimir energy for a massless scalar field in the presence of a rectangular box, with lengths $L_{1}$ and $L_{2}$, i.e., $\Omega=[0,L_{1}]\times[0,L_{2}]$ with non-ideal boundary conditions, we employ an approximate functional equation of the Epstein zeta-function.