000162793 001__ 162793 000162793 005__ 20251017144637.0 000162793 0247_ $$2doi$$a10.1016/j.aop.2025.170195 000162793 0248_ $$2sideral$$a145273 000162793 037__ $$aART-2025-145273 000162793 041__ $$aeng 000162793 100__ $$0(orcid)0000-0003-3669-6241$$aAsorey, Manuel$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000162793 245__ $$aNew vacuum boundary effects of massive field theories 000162793 260__ $$c2025 000162793 5060_ $$aAccess copy available to the general public$$fUnrestricted 000162793 5203_ $$aAnalytical arguments suggest that the Casimir energy in 2+1 dimensions for gauge theories decays exponentially with the distance between the boundaries. The phenomenon has also been observed by non-perturbative numerical simulations. The dependence of this exponential decay on the different boundary conditions could help into a better understanding of the infrared behavior of these theories and in particular their mass spectrum. A similar phenomenon is expected to hold in 3+1 dimensions. Motivated by this feature we analyze the dependence of the exponential decay of Casimir energy for different boundary conditions of massive scalar fields in 3+1 dimensional spacetimes. We show that boundary conditions can be classified in two different families according to the rate of exponential decay of the Casimir energy. If the boundary conditions on each boundary are independent (e.g. both boundaries satisfy Dirichlet boundary conditions), the Casimir energy is exponentially decaying two times faster than when the boundary conditions interconnect the two boundary plates (e.g. for periodic or antiperiodic boundary conditions). These results will be useful for a comparison with the Casimir energy in the non-perturbative regime of non-Abelian gauge theories. 000162793 536__ $$9info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/DGA-FSE/E21-17R$$9info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/ES/MICINN/PGC2022-126078NB-C21 000162793 540__ $$9info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess$$aby$$uhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/deed.es 000162793 655_4 $$ainfo:eu-repo/semantics/article$$vinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion 000162793 700__ $$aEzquerro, Fernando$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000162793 700__ $$aPardina, Miguel$$uUniversidad de Zaragoza 000162793 7102_ $$12004$$2X$$aUniversidad de Zaragoza$$bDpto. Física Teórica$$cÁrea Administrativa 000162793 7102_ $$12004$$2405$$aUniversidad de Zaragoza$$bDpto. Física Teórica$$cÁrea Física Teórica 000162793 773__ $$g481 (2025), 170195 [11 pp.]$$pAnn. phys.$$tANNALS OF PHYSICS$$x0003-4916 000162793 8564_ $$s813602$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/162793/files/texto_completo.pdf$$yVersión publicada 000162793 8564_ $$s1959352$$uhttps://zaguan.unizar.es/record/162793/files/texto_completo.jpg?subformat=icon$$xicon$$yVersión publicada 000162793 909CO $$ooai:zaguan.unizar.es:162793$$particulos$$pdriver 000162793 951__ $$a2025-10-17-14:30:00 000162793 980__ $$aARTICLE