Non-Perturbative Mass and Charge Renormalization in Relativistic No-Photon Quantum Electrodynamics

Starting from a formal Hamiltonian as found in the physics literature -- omitting photons -- we define a renormalized Hamiltonian through charge and mass renormalization. We show that the restriction to the one-electron subspace is well-defined. Our construction is non-perturbative and does not use a cut-off. The Hamiltonian is relevant for the description of the Lamb shift in muonic atoms.Comment: Reformulation of main theorem, minor changes in the proo

The Atomic Density on the Thomas--Fermi Length Scale for the Chandrasekhar Hamiltonian

We consider a large neutral atom of atomic number $Z$, modeled by a pseudo-relativistic Hamiltonian of Chandrasekhar. We study its suitably rescaled one-particle ground state density on the Thomas--Fermi length scale $Z^{-1/3}$. Using an observation by Fefferman and Seco (1989), we find that the density on this scale converges to the minimizer of the Thomas--Fermi functional of hydrogen as $Z\to\infty$ when $Z/c$ is fixed to a value not exceeding $2/\pi$. This shows that the electron density on the Thomas--Fermi length scale does not exhibit any relativistic effects

THE GROUND STATE ENERGY OF HEAVY ATOMS (Tosio Kato Centennial Conference)

We review results on the asymptotic behavior of the groundstate energy and the reduced one-particle ground state density of large atoms