Trapping cold atoms near carbon nanotubes: Thermal spin flips and Casimir-Polder potential

We investigate the possibility of trapping ultracold Rb-87 atoms near the outside of a metallic carbon nanotube, which we imagine using as a miniaturized current-carrying wire. We calculate atomic spin-flip lifetimes and compare the strength of the Casimir-Polder potential with the magnetic trapping potential. Our analysis indicates that the Casimir-Polder force is the dominant loss mechanism, and we compute the minimum distance to the carbon nanotube at which the atoms can be trapped to be larger than 100 nm.