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Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Quantum Electrodynamics

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Virtual Resonant Emission And Oscillatory Long-Range Tails In Van Der Waals Interactions Of Excited States: Qedtreatment And Applications, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Chandra Mani Adhikari, Vincent Debierre Mar 2017

Virtual Resonant Emission And Oscillatory Long-Range Tails In Van Der Waals Interactions Of Excited States: Qedtreatment And Applications, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Chandra Mani Adhikari, Vincent Debierre

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We report on a quantum electrodynamic (QED) investigation of the interaction between a ground state atom with another atom in an excited state. General expressions, applicable to any atom, are indicated for the long-range tails that are due to virtual resonant emission and absorption into and from vacuum modes whose frequency equals the transition frequency to available lower-lying atomic states. For identical atoms, one of which is in an excited state, we also discuss the mixing term that depends on the symmetry of the two-atom wave function (these evolve into either the gerade or the ungerade state for close approach), …


Gravitational Correction To Vacuum Polarization, Ulrich D. Jentschura Feb 2015

Gravitational Correction To Vacuum Polarization, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We consider the gravitational correction to (electronic) vacuum polarization in the presence of a gravitational background field. The Dirac propagators for the virtual fermions are modified to include the leading gravitational correction (potential term) which corresponds to a coordinate-dependent fermion mass. The mass term is assumed to be uniform over a length scale commensurate with the virtual electron-positron pair. The on-mass shell renormalization condition ensures that the gravitational correction vanishes on the mass shell of the photon, i.e., the speed of light is unaffected by the quantum field theoretical loop correction, in full agreement with the equivalence principle. Nontrivial corrections …


Long-Range Atom-Wall Interactions And Mixing Terms: Metastable Hydrogen, Ulrich D. Jentschura Jan 2015

Long-Range Atom-Wall Interactions And Mixing Terms: Metastable Hydrogen, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We investigate the interaction of metastable 2S hydrogen atoms with a perfectly conducting wall, including parity-breaking S-P mixing terms (with full account of retardation). The neighboring 2P1/2 and 2P3/2 levels are found to have a profound effect on the transition from the short-range, nonrelativistic regime, to the retarded form of the Casimir-Polder interaction. The corresponding P state admixtures to the metastable 2S state are calculated. We find the long-range asymptotics of the retarded Casimir-Polder potentials and mixing amplitudes for general excited states, including a fully quantum electrodynamic treatment of the dipole-quadrupole mixing term. The decay width of the …


One-Loop Dominance In The Imaginary Part Of The Polarizability: Application To Blackbody And Noncontact Van Der Waals Friction, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Grzegorz Lach, Maarten Dekieviet, Krzysztof Pachucki Jan 2015

One-Loop Dominance In The Imaginary Part Of The Polarizability: Application To Blackbody And Noncontact Van Der Waals Friction, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Grzegorz Lach, Maarten Dekieviet, Krzysztof Pachucki

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Phenomenologically important quantum dissipative processes include blackbody friction (an atom absorbs counterpropagating blueshifted photons and spontaneously emits them in all directions, losing kinetic energy) and noncontact van der Waals friction (in the vicinity of a dielectric surface, the mirror charges of the constituent particles inside the surface experience drag, slowing the atom). The theoretical predictions for these processes are modified upon a rigorous quantum electrodynamic treatment, which shows that the one-loop "correction" yields the dominant contribution to the off-resonant, gauge-invariant, imaginary part of the atom's polarizability at room temperature, for typical atom-surface interactions. The tree-level contribution to the polarizability dominates …


Quantum Electrodynamic Corrections To The G Factor Of Helium P States, Mariusz Puchalski, Ulrich D. Jentschura Aug 2012

Quantum Electrodynamic Corrections To The G Factor Of Helium P States, Mariusz Puchalski, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Landég factor describes the response of an atomic energy level to an external perturbation by a uniform and constant magnetic field. In the case of many-electron systems, the leading term is given by the interaction μ B(L- +2S- )•B- , where L- and S- are the orbital and spin angular momentum operators, respectively, summed over all electrons. For helium, a long-standing experimental-theoretical discrepancy for P states motivates a re-evaluation of the higher order terms which follow from relativistic quantum theory and quantum electrodynamics (QED). The tensor structure of relativistic corrections involves scalar, vector, and symmetric and antisymmetric tensor …


Self-Energy Correction To The Bound-Electron G Factor Of P States, Ulrich D. Jentschura Jan 2010

Self-Energy Correction To The Bound-Electron G Factor Of P States, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The radiative self-energy correction to the bound-electron g factor of 2P1/2 and 2P3/2 states in one-electron ions is evaluated to order α(Zα)2. The contribution of high-energy virtual photons is treated by means of an effective Dirac equation, and the result is verified by an approach based on long-wavelength quantum electrodynamics. The contribution of low-energy virtual photons is calculated both in the velocity and in the length gauge, and gauge invariance is verified explicitly. The results compare favorably to recently available numerical data for hydrogenlike systems with low nuclear charge numbers.


Coulomb-Field-Induced Conversion Of A High-Energy Photon Into A Pair Assisted By A Counterpropagating Laser Beam, Erik Lotstedt, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Christoph H. Keitel Jan 2009

Coulomb-Field-Induced Conversion Of A High-Energy Photon Into A Pair Assisted By A Counterpropagating Laser Beam, Erik Lotstedt, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Christoph H. Keitel

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The laser-induced modification of a fundamental process of quantum electrodynamics, the conversion of a high-energy gamma photon in the Coulomb field of a nucleus into an electron-positron pair, is studied theoretically. Although the employed formalism allows for the general case where the gamma photon and laser photons cross at an arbitrary angle, we here focus on a theoretically interesting and numerically challenging setup, where the laser beam and gamma photon counterpropagate and impinge on a nucleus at rest. For a peak laser field smaller than the critical Schwinger field and gamma photon energy larger than the field-free threshold, the total …


Relativistic Calculation Of The Two-Photon Decay Rate Of Highly Excited Ionic States, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Andrey S. Surzhykov Apr 2008

Relativistic Calculation Of The Two-Photon Decay Rate Of Highly Excited Ionic States, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Andrey S. Surzhykov

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Based on quantum electrodynamics, we reexamine the two-photon decay of one-electron atoms. Special attention is paid to the calculation of the (two-photon) total decay rates which can be viewed as the imaginary part of the two-loop self-energy. We argue that our approach can be easily applied to the cases with a virtual state having an intermediate energy between the initial and the final state of the decay process leading, thus, to the resonance peaks in the two-photon energy distribution. In order to illustrate our approach, we obtain fully relativistic results, resolved into electric and magnetic multipole components, for the two-photon …


Fundamental Constants And Tests Of Theory In Rydberg States Of Hydrogenlike Ions, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Peter J. Mohr, Joseph Tan, Benedikt J. Wundt Apr 2008

Fundamental Constants And Tests Of Theory In Rydberg States Of Hydrogenlike Ions, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Peter J. Mohr, Joseph Tan, Benedikt J. Wundt

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

A comparison of precision frequency measurements to quantum electrodynamics (QED) predictions for Rydberg states of hydrogenlike ions can yield information on values of fundamental constants and test theory. With the results of a calculation of a key QED contribution reported here, the uncertainty in the theory of the energy levels is reduced to a level where such a comparison can yield an improved value of the Rydberg constant.


Quantum Electrodynamic Corrections To The Hyperfine Structure Of Excited S States, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Vladimir A. Yerokhin Jun 2006

Quantum Electrodynamic Corrections To The Hyperfine Structure Of Excited S States, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Vladimir A. Yerokhin

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

State-dependent quantum electrodynamic corrections are evaluated for the hyperfine splitting of nS states for arbitrary principal quantum number n. The calculations comprise both the self-energy and the vacuum-polarization correction of order α(Zα) 2 EF and the recoil correction of order (Zα)2 (m/M) EF. Higher-order corrections are summarized and partly reevaluated as well. Accurate predictions for hydrogen hyperfine splitting intervals of nS states with n=2,...,8 are presented. The results obtained are important due to steady progress in hydrogen spectroscopy for transitions involving highly excited S states.


Relativistic Electron Correlation, Quantum Electrodynamics, And The Lifetime Of The 1s²2s²2p²PO3/2 Level In Boronlike Argon, Alain Lapierre, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Jose R. Crespo Lopez-Urrutia, Jean Pierre Braun, Gunter Brenner, Hjalmar Bruhns, Daniel A. Fischer, Antonio J. Gonzalez, Zoltan Harman, Walter Johnson, Christoph H. Keitel, Vladimir Sergeyevich Mironov, C. J. Osborne, Guenther Sikler, R. Soria Orts, Vladimir M. Shabaev, Hiroyuki Tawara, I. I. Tupitsyn, Joachim Hermann Ullrich, Andrey V. Volotka Oct 2005

Relativistic Electron Correlation, Quantum Electrodynamics, And The Lifetime Of The 1s²2s²2p²PO3/2 Level In Boronlike Argon, Alain Lapierre, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Jose R. Crespo Lopez-Urrutia, Jean Pierre Braun, Gunter Brenner, Hjalmar Bruhns, Daniel A. Fischer, Antonio J. Gonzalez, Zoltan Harman, Walter Johnson, Christoph H. Keitel, Vladimir Sergeyevich Mironov, C. J. Osborne, Guenther Sikler, R. Soria Orts, Vladimir M. Shabaev, Hiroyuki Tawara, I. I. Tupitsyn, Joachim Hermann Ullrich, Andrey V. Volotka

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The lifetime of the Ar13+ 1s22s22p2Po3/2 metastable level was determined at the Heidelberg Electron Beam Ion Trap to be 9.573(4)(5)ms(stat)(syst). The accuracy level of one per thousand makes this measurement sensitive to quantum electrodynamic effects like the electron anomalous magnetic moment (EAMM) and to relativistic electron-electron correlation effects like the frequency-dependent Breit interaction. Theoretical predictions, adjusted for the EAMM, cluster about a lifetime that is approximately 3σ shorter than our experimental result.


Complete Two-Loop Correction To The Bound-Electron Factor, Krzysztof Pachucki, Andrzej Czarnecki, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Vladimir A. Yerokhin Aug 2005

Complete Two-Loop Correction To The Bound-Electron Factor, Krzysztof Pachucki, Andrzej Czarnecki, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Vladimir A. Yerokhin

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Within a systematic approach based on dimensionally regularized nonrelativistic quantum electrodynamics, we derive a complete result for the two-loop correction to order ( α/ π )2 ( Zα )4 for the g factor of an electron bound in an nS state of a hydrogenlike ion. The results obtained significantly improve the accuracy of the theoretical predictions for the hydrogenlike carbon and oxygen ions and influence the value of the electron mass inferred from g-factor measurements. D


Perturbation Approach To The Self-Energy Of Non-S Hydrogenic States, Eric Olivier Le Bigot, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Peter J. Mohr, Paul Indelicato, Gerhard Soff Oct 2003

Perturbation Approach To The Self-Energy Of Non-S Hydrogenic States, Eric Olivier Le Bigot, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Peter J. Mohr, Paul Indelicato, Gerhard Soff

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present results on the self-energy correction to the energy levels of hydrogen and hydrogenlike ions. The self energy represents the largest QED correction to the relativistic (Dirac-Coulomb) energy of a bound electron. We focus on the perturbation expansion of the self energy of non-S states, and provide estimates of the so-called A60 perturbative coefficient, which can be considered as a relativistic Bethe logarithm. Precise values of A60 are given for many P, D, F and G states, while estimates are given for other electronic states. These results can be used in high-precision spectroscopy experiments in hydrogen and …


Asymptotic Properties Of Self-Energy Coefficients, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Eric Olivier Le Bigot, Peter J. Mohr, Paul Indelicato, Gerhard Soff Apr 2003

Asymptotic Properties Of Self-Energy Coefficients, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Eric Olivier Le Bigot, Peter J. Mohr, Paul Indelicato, Gerhard Soff

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We investigate the asymptotic properties of higher-order binding corrections to the one-loop self-energy of excited states in atomic hydrogen. We evaluate the historically problematic A60 coefficient for all P states with principal quantum numbers n ≤ 7 and D states with n ≤ 8 and find that a satisfactory representation of the n dependence of the coefficients requires a three-parameter fit. For the high-energy contribution to A60, we find exact formulas. The results obtained are relevant for the interpretation of high-precision laser spectroscopic measurements.


Comment On "A Convergent Series For The Qed Effective Action", Darrell R. Lamm, Sree Ram Valluri, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Ernst Joachim Weniger Feb 2002

Comment On "A Convergent Series For The Qed Effective Action", Darrell R. Lamm, Sree Ram Valluri, Ulrich D. Jentschura, Ernst Joachim Weniger

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.