General Requirements for Casimir Force Measurements

AbstractGiven that the Casimir force is very small and has a strong dependence on the separation distance and on the geometrical and material properties of the boundary surfaces, the measurement of this force is a challenging task. This chapter briefly considers older measurements of the Casimir force and formulates the general experimental requirements and best practices which follow from these measurements. Next, rigorous procedures for comparison of experiment with theory in relation to the force-distance measurements are discussed. Specifically, the presentation of the experimental errors and precision and the theoretical uncertainties for real materials are elaborated on. The statistical framework for the comparison between experiment and theory is also discussed. The concepts introduced in the chapter are used in Chapters 19–25, where the main experiments on the measurement of the Casimir force are considered.