Pseudo-Casimir force in confined nematic polymers

We investigate the pseudo-Casimir force in a slab of material composed of n ematically ordered long polymers. We write the total mesoscopic energy toge ther with the constraint connecting the local density and director fluctuat ions and evaluate the corresponding fluctuation free energy by standard met hods. This leads to a pseudo-Casimir force of a different type than in the case of standard, short-molecule nematics. We investigate its separation de pendence and its magnitude and explicitly derive the relevant limiting case s.