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Quantum field theory with dynamical boundary conditions and the Casimir effect

We study a coupled system that describes the interacting dynamics between a bulk field, confined to a finite region with timelike boundary, and a boundary observable. In our system the dynamics of the boundary observable prescribes dynamical boundary conditions for the bulk field. We cast our classical system in the form of an abstract linear Klein-Gordon equation, in an enlarged Hilbert space for the bulk field and the boundary observable. This makes it possible to apply to our coupled system the general methods of quantization. In particular, we implement the Fock quantization in full detail. Using this quantization we study the Casimir effect in our coupled system. Specifically, we compute the renormalized local state polarization and the local Casimir energy, which we can define for both the bulk field and the boundary observable of our system. Numerical examples in which the integrated Casimir energy is positive or negative are presented.