22-03U

A brief overview of fluctuation-induced forces in statistical systems with film geometry at the critical point and the calculation of Casimir amplitudes, which characterize these forces quantitatively, is presented. Particular attention is paid to the special features of strongly anisotropic m-axis systems at the Lifshitz point, specifically, in the case of a “perpendicular” orientation of surfaces with free boundary conditions. Beyond the simplest one-loop approximation, calculations of Casimir amplitudes are impossible without knowledge of the Gaussian propagator, which corresponds to the lines of Feynman diagrams in the perturbation theory. We present an explicit expression for such a propagator in the case of an anisotropic system with parallel surfaces perpendicular to one of the anisotropy axes.