D. J. Mitchell

van der Waals Forces between Cylinders: I. Nonretarded Forces between Thin Isotropic Rods and Finite Size Corrections

The free energy of interaction of two long thin dielectric cylinders is evaluated in the nonretarded limit by the method of van Kampen. The result includes all nonadditive many body forces and the effects of an intervening medium. In the limit of dilute systems the result reduces to that obtained by summation of r(-6) pair potentials.

van der Waals Forces between Cylinders: II. Retarded Interaction between Thin Isotropic Rods

We derive the retarded van der Waals interaction between two long thin parallel dielectric cylinders immersed in a solvent. The result shows that the ultraviolet interactions which may be responsible for the specificity of macromolecular interactions do not operate strongly over distances R >/= 50 A. For greater distances the contribution of these frequencies xi is damped by a factor infinity e(-xiR/c).

Solvent mediated interactions—solute size effects and predictions of mean field theory

Abstract We investigate the effect of solute/solvent size ratio on the solvent mediated potential of mean force between solutes at infinite dilution. Predictions of Landau—Ginzburg mean field theory are compared with a Percus—Yevick—hypernetted chain theory of a mixture of infinitely dilute hard sphere solutes in a solvent of hard spheres with surface adhesion (sticky spheres).

On Black Body Radiation and the Attractive Force between Two Metal Plates

The dispersion force between two ideal metal plates is derived using a new method which places the emphasis totally on the sources of the electromagnetic radiation. Using this approach, the conceptual difficulty of how radiation in a perfectly reflecting cavity can ever achieve equilibrium with the surrounding medium is eliminated.

Asymptotic behaviour of the pair distribution function of a classical electron gas

Abstract The asymptotic behaviour of the pair distribution function of a classical electron gas is determined and found to disagree with the conjectured form of Lie and Ichikawa.