https://doi.org/10.1140/epjd/e2012-30118-1
Regular Article
QED corrections to the electromagnetic Abraham force
Casimir momentum of the hydrogen atom?
1 Université Grenoble 1/CNRS,
LPMMC, Maison des
Magistères, 38042
Grenoble,
France
2 Scuola Normale Superiore, Physics
Department, Piazza dei Cavalieri,
7
56126
Pisa,
Italy
3 Laboratoire National des Champs
Magnétiques Intenses, UPR3228 CNRS/INSA/UJF/UPS, Toulouse and Grenoble,
France
a e-mail: Bart.Van-Tiggelen@grenoble.cnrs.fr
Received:
17
February
2012
Received in final form:
7
August
2012
Published online:
25
October
2012
We develop a QED approach to find the contribution of the quantum vacuum to the electromagnetic Abraham force. Semi-classical theories predict diverging contributions from the quantum vacuum. We show that the divergencies disappear by Kramers-Bethe mass-renormalization. The finite remainder is compared to the relativistic corrections to the Abraham force. This work applies an earlier approach [S. Kawka, B.A. van Tiggelen, Europhys Lett. 89, 11002 (2010)]1, dedicated to the simpler case of a harmonic oscillator, to the Coulomb interaction, which is more realistic in a QED context.
Key words: Atomic Physics
Two errors occur in this work: the atomic Hamiltonian (4) contains an erroneous minus sign in front of ∆m, and equation (6) for the interaction W is evaluated without the factor 1/2 in front of the gauge term B0 × r. Upon restauring these errors, the Casimir momentum proportional to α vanishes, and the α2 term becomes leading. See [2].
© EDP Sciences, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag 2012
