Fluctuation-induced friction forces and frictional heating of metallic bodies in relative motion

Abstract The article discusses the Casimir-Lifshitz frictional heating of two bodies in relative lateral motion separated by a thin vacuum gap. The particle-plate and plate-plate configurations as the limiting cases and their modifications are tackled. Superheating conditions for one of the metal bodies in near-field vacuum contact are studied using several low-temperature models of resistance for gold.