Comment on "Thermal Lifshitz force between an atom and a conductor with a small density of carriers"

TL;DR

This paper critically examines a generalized Lifshitz theory for atom-conductor interactions, revealing violations of thermodynamic principles and inconsistencies with experimental data for many dielectrics.

Contribution

It demonstrates that Pitaevskii's generalized Lifshitz theory violates the Nernst heat theorem and conflicts with experimental results for dielectric materials.

Findings

Violates the Nernst heat theorem for many dielectrics

Inconsistent with experimental data

Challenges the validity of the generalized Lifshitz theory

Abstract

We demonstrate that the generalization of the Lifshitz theory proposed by L. P. Pitaevskii arXiv:0801.0656 [Phys. Rev. Lett. v.101, 163202 (2008)] violates the Nernst heat theorem for many dielectric materials and is experimentally inconsistent.