Effect of the electric current on the Casimir force between graphene sheets

The dependence of the thermal component of the Casimir force and Casimir friction between graphene sheets on the drift velocity of charge carriers in one of the sheets has been analyzed. It has been shown that the drift motion results in the measurable change in the thermal Casimir force owing to the Doppler effect. The thermal Casimir force, as well as Casimir friction, increases strongly in the case of resonant photon tunneling, when the energy of an emitted photon coincides with the excitation energy of an electron-hole pair. In the case of resonant photon tunneling, the dominant contribution to the Casimir friction even at temperatures above room temperature comes from quantum friction caused by quantum fluctuations. Quantum friction can be detected in an experiment on the friction drag between graphene sheets in a high electric field.