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We analyze the spatial coherence of the electromagnetic field emitted by a half-space at temperature T close to the interface. An asymptotic analysis allows to identify three different contributions to the cross-spectral density tensor in the near-field regime. It is shown that the coherence length can be either much larger or much shorter than the wavelength depending on the dominant contribution.
We discuss heating and decoherencw in traps fpr ions and neutral paricles close to metallic surfaces. We focus on simple trap geometries and compute noise spectra of thermally excited electromagnetic fields. If the trap is located in the near field of the substrate, the field fluctuations are largely increased compared to the level of the blackbody field, leading to much shorter coherence and life times of the trapped atoms. The correspinding time constants are computed for ion traps and magnetic traps. Analytical estimates for the size dependence of the noise spectrum are given. We finally discuss prospects for the coherent transport of matter waves in integrated surface waveguides.