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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2017

Ground State

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

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), …


Long-Range Interactions Of Hydrogen Atoms In Excited States. I. 2s-1s Interactions And Dirac-Δ Perturbations, Chandra Mani Adhikari, Vincent Debierre, Arthur N. Matveev, Nikolai N. Kolachevsky, Ulrich D. Jentschura Feb 2017

Long-Range Interactions Of Hydrogen Atoms In Excited States. I. 2s-1s Interactions And Dirac-Δ Perturbations, Chandra Mani Adhikari, Vincent Debierre, Arthur N. Matveev, Nikolai N. Kolachevsky, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The theory of the long-range interaction of metastable excited atomic states with ground-state atoms is analyzed. We show that the long-range interaction is essentially modified when quasidegenerate states are available for virtual transitions. A discrepancy in the literature regarding the van der Waals coefficient C6 (2S ;1 S ) describing the interaction of metastable atomic hydrogen ( 2 S state) with a ground-state hydrogen atom is resolved. In the the van der Waals range a0 ≪ R ≪ a0 / α , where a0 = ℏ / α m c is the Bohr radius and α …