The Casimir-Polder interaction between an atom and a metal wall is investigated under the influence of real conditions including the dynamic polarizability of the atom, finite conductivity of the wall metal, and nonzero temperature of the system. Both analytical and numerical results for the free energy and force are obtained over a wide range of atom-wall distances. Numerical computations are performed for an $\mathrm{Au}$ wall and metastable ${\mathrm{He}}^{*}$, $\mathrm{Na}$, and $\mathrm{Cs}$ atoms. For the ${\mathrm{He}}^{*}$ atom we demonstrate, as an illustration, that at short separations of about the $\mathrm{Au}$ plasma wavelength at room temperature the free energy deviates up to 35% and the force up to 57% from the classical Casimir-Polder result. Accordingly, such large deviations should be taken into account in precision experiments on atom-wall interactions. The combined account of different corrections to the Casimir-Polder interaction leads to the conclusion that at short separations the corrections due to the dynamic polarizability of an atom play a more important role than—and suppress—the corrections due to the nonideality of the metal wall. By comparison of the exact atomic polarizabilities with those in the framework of the single oscillator model, it is shown that the obtained asymptotic expressions enable calculation of the free energy and force for the atom-wall interaction under real conditions with a precision of 1%.

• Received 25 May 2004

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.70.042901