  We show that the Casimir effect may lead to a deconfinement phase transition
induced by the presence of boundaries in confining gauge theories. Using
first-principle numerical simulations we demonstrate this phenomenon in the
simplest case of the compact lattice electrodynamics in two spatial dimensions.
We find that the critical temperature of the deconfinement transition in the
vacuum between two parallel dielectric/metallic wires is a monotonically
increasing function of the separation between the wires. At infinite separation
the wires do not affect the critical temperature while at small separations the
vacuum between the wires looses the confinement property due to modification of
vacuum fluctuations of virtual monopoles.
