First Observation of the Dynamical Casimir Effect - Technology Review

First Observation of the Dynamical Casimir Effect - Technology Review: But there is another phenomenon called the dynamical Casimir effect that has never been seen.

It occurs when a mirror moves through space at relativistic speeds. Here's what happens. At slow speeds, the sea of virtual particles can easily adapt to the mirror's movement and continue to come into existence in pairs and then disappear as they annihilate each other.

But when the speed of the mirror begins to match the the speed of the photons, in other words at relativistic speeds, some photons become separated from their partners and so do not get annihilated. These virtual photons then become real and the mirror begins to produce light.