Conductivity of dielectric and thermal atom-wall interaction

We compare the experimental data of the first measurement of a temperature dependence of the Casimir-Polder force by Obrecht et al (2007 Phys. Rev. Lett. 98 063201) with the theory taking into account small, but physically real, dc conductivity of the dielectric substrate. The theory is found to be inconsistent with the data. The conclusion is drawn that the conductivity of dielectric materials should not be included in the model of the dielectric response in the Lifshitz theory. This conclusion obtained from the long separation measurement is consistent with related but different results obtained for semiconductors and metals at short separations.