Possible way to measure the Casimir force using a suspended interferometer- art. no. 042002.

The accurate measurement of the Casimir force and the search for hypothetic al long-range interactions are subjects of growing interest. In this paper we propose to use a suspended interferometric device to measure the Casimir effect between metallic flat surfaces. This allows us to perform the measu rement at distances much larger than the ones used in previous measurements with spherical surfaces. The use of the proposed dynamic detection scheme can also help in the discrimination of the different contributions to the m easured force. Some considerations about the physical information which can be obtained from this type of measurement are also made. [S0556-2821(99)04 502-6].