  The surface-atom Casimir-Polder-Lifshitz force out of thermal equilibrium is
investigated in the framework of macroscopic electrodynamics. Particular
attention is devoted to its large distance limit that shows a new, stronger
behaviour with respect to the equilibrium case. The frequency shift produced by
the surface-atom force on the the center-of-mass oscillations of a harmonically
trapped Bose-Einstein condensate and on the Bloch oscillations of an ultra-cold
fermionic gas in an optical lattice are discussed for configurations out of
thermal equilibrium.
