Casimir energy corrections by light-cone fluctuations

We study the effects of light-cone fluctuations on the renormalized zero-point energy associated with a free massless scalar field in the presence of boundaries. In order to simulate light-cone fluctuations, we introduce a space-time dependent random coefficient in the Klein-Gordon operator. We assume that the field is defined in a domain with one confined direction. For simplicity, we choose the symmetric case of two parallel plates separated by a distance a. The correction to the renormalized vacuum energy density between the plates goes as 1/a8 instead of the usual 1/a4 dependence for the free case. In turn, we also show that light-cone fluctuations break down the vacuum pressure homogeneity between the plates. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.