Two fermion relativistic bound states: hyperfine shifts

We discuss the hyperfine shifts of the Positronium levels in a relativistic framework, starting from a two fermion wave equation where, in addition to the Coulomb potential, the magnetic interaction between spins is described by a Breit term. We write the system of four first order differential equations describing this model. We discuss its mathematical features, mainly in relation to possible singularities that may appear at finite values of the radial coordinate. We solve the boundary value problems both in the singular and non singular cases and we develop a perturbation scheme, well suited for numerical computations, that allows to calculate the hyperfine shifts for any level, according to well established physical arguments that the Breit term must be treated at the first perturbative order. We discuss our results, comparing them with the corresponding values obtained from semi-classical expansions.Comment: 16 page