The Retarded Dispersion Interaction

The continuum treatment of dispersion forces due to Lifshitz [19,20] provides the appropriate analysis of retardation through quantum field theory. More recent analyses are more tractable and are described in some detail in several references [1,3,12,21,22], 

A common approach to treating retardation in dispersion forces is to define an effective Hamaker constant that is not constant but depends on separation distance. Lxioking back at Eq. VI-22, this defines the effective Hamaker constant 

Application of the exact continuum analysis of dispersion forces requires significant calculations and the knowledge of the frequency spectmm of the material dielectric response over wavelengths X = 2irc/j/ around 10-10 nm. Because of these complications, it is common to assume that a primary absorption peak at one frequency in the ultraviolet, j/uv. dominates the dielectric spectrum of most materials. This leads to an expression for the dielectric response 

The distance dependence enters through G(X), which goes to 1 as X - 0 and goes to 4V2/XX as X — 00. An interpolating function is available for G(X) at intermediate separations 

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