Has anyone ever tried to use the Casimir Effect to create
a classical model of the electron ? The Casimir force/unit area
between two large parallel plates goes like K*h*c/d^4
(where K is some constant and d is the separation between
two plates) and is attractive. The idea would be to use
the Casimir attraction (for a sphereical geometry however)
to counter the electrostatic replusion of the electron's
charge. If the 1/d^4 dependence of the attractive force
holds for the sphereical case it seems that one could
derive some equilibrium condition between the Casimir
attraction and the electrostatic replusion. However actually
calculating the sphereical Casimir effect seems a *bit* more
difficult than for the parallel plates.
Also it's not really right to say this is a classical electron
model since the Casimir effect is a quantum effect.
Finally are there other models that try to give the electron
some kind of internal structure while still keeping it
fundemental (not preon models of the electron).
Thanks,
Doug
<da...@fermi.clas.virginia.edu>
This has been tried (though I have no references at hand). As I recall,
the result was that the Casimir force for spherical geometry is repulsive
rather than attractive.
Oh well.