  We show that atoms interacting with evanescent light fields, generated at the
interface of a dielectric with vacuum, experience artificial gauge potentials.
These potentials depend crucially on the physical parameters which characterize
the evanescent fields most notably the refractive index of the dielectric
material and the angle of incidence of the laser beam totally internaly
reflected at the interface. Gauge fields are derived for various evanescent
light fields and for both two-level and three-level systems. The use of such
artificial gauge potentials for the manipulation of atoms trapped at the
interfaces is pointed out and discussed.
