We found new signatures of the dynamical Casimir effect (DCE) in the context of superconducting circuits. We show that if the recent experiment made by Wilson et al., which brought the DCE into reality for the first time, is repeated with slight modifications (for instance, different values for the capacitance of the superconducting quantum interference device), three remarkable results will show up, namely, (i) a quite different spectral distribution for the created particles, deviating from the typical parabolic shape, (ii) an enhancement by a factor of approximately $5\times 10^3$ in the number of created particles with half driving frequency of the effective moving mirror, and (iii) an enhancement by a factor of $3\times 10^2$ in the particle creation rate. These results may guide the experimentalists in their search for alternative routes to observe the DCE in future experiments.

• Received 12 March 2014

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.90.025003