  The Casimir-Polder interaction potential is evaluated for a polarizable
microparticle and a conducting wall in the geometry of a cosmic string
perpendicular to the wall. The general case of the anisotropic polarizability
tensor for the microparticle is considered. The corresponding force is a
function of the wall-microparticle and cosmic string-microparticle distances.
Depending on the orientation of the polarizability tensor principal axes the
force can be either attractive or repulsive. The asymptotic behavior of the
Casimir-Polder potential is investigated at large and small separations
compared to the wavelength of the dominant atomic transitions. We show that the
conical defect may be used to control the strength and the sign of the
Casimir-Polder force.
