We calculate the van der Waals dispersive interaction between a neutral but polarizable atom and a perfectly conducting isolated sphere in the nonretarded case. We make use of two separate models, one being the semiclassical fluctuating-dipoles method, the other using ordinary quantum mechanics.
@article{arxiv.0903.2091,
title = {Dispersive interaction between an atom and a conducting sphere},
author = {M. M. Taddei and T. N. C. Mendes and C. Farina},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0903.2091},
year = {2009}
}