CASIMIR EFFECT FOR A SPHERICAL SHELL IN DE SITTER SPACE–TIME WITH SIGNATURE CHANGE

We calculate the Casimir stress on a spherical shell in a de Sitter background corresponding to different metric signatures and cosmological constants, for massless scalar fields that satisfy Dirichlet boundary conditions on the shell. We show that a contribution appears due to signature change, which leads to late-time expansion of the bubbles in this background.