Giant non-equilibrium vacuum friction: Role of singular evanescent wave resonances in moving media

Abstract

We recently reported on the existence of a singular resonance in moving media which arises due to perfect amplitude and phase balance of evanescent waves. We show here that the non-equilibrium vacuum friction (lateral Casimir-Lifshitz force) between moving plates separated by a finite gap is fundamentally dominated by this resonance. Our result is robust to losses and dispersion as well as polarization mixing which occurs in the relativistic limit.