van der Waals and Casimir interactions between two graphene sheets

The thermal free energy and pressure of dispersion interaction between two graphene sheets described by the Dirac model are calculated using the Lifshitz formula with reflection coefficients expressed via the polarization tensor. The obtained results for a pristine graphene are found to be in agreement with computations using Coulomb coupling between density fluctuations. For a graphene with nonzero mass gap parameter a qualitatively different behavior for the free energy and pressure is obtained. The Lifshitz formula with reflection coefficients expressed via the polarization tensor is used as a test for different computational approaches proposed in the literature for modeling the response function and conductivity of graphene at both zero and nonzero temperature. DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.87.075439