J W Darewych and L Di Leo 1996 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 29 6817 doi:10.1088/0305-4470/29/21/015
J W Darewych and L Di Leo
Show affiliationsWe point out that the Coulomb part of the QED Hamiltonian in the Coulomb gauge has exact two-fermion eigenstates, provided that the wavefunction satisfies a Dirac-like (or Breit-like) equation. This equation, which describes the relative motion of a system of two fermions of masses
and
and charges
and
interacting via the Coulomb potential, is shown to reduce to the usual Dirac eigenvalue equation when one of
is taken to be infinite. For specific
states of the two-fermion systems, the equation is reduced to coupled radial equations. Numerical solutions for the mass spectrum
of the two-fermion system as a function of the coupling constant
are obtained for
states for various combinations of
and
. We find that the ground-state energy of the two-fermion system has normalizable bound-state solutions for
, where
for
, but decreases towards the one-particle Dirac result of
as one of the particle masses tends to infinity. Our numerical results for
are in agreement with conventional perturbative
results if
. Comparison is made with other radial reductions of two-fermion equations with purely Coulombic interactions.
03.65.Pm Relativistic wave equations
12.20.Ds Specific calculations
Quantum gases, liquids and solids
Statistical physics and nonlinear systems
Issue 21 (7 November 1996)
Received 10 April 1996, in final form 2 July 1996
J W Darewych and L Di Leo 1996 J. Phys. A: Math. Gen. 29 6817
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