English

Non-Relativistic Positronium Spectrum in Relativistic Schroedinger Theory

High Energy Physics - Theory 2008-07-11 v2

Abstract

The lowest energy levels of positronium are studied in the non-relativistic approximation within the framework of Relativistic Schr\"odinger Theory (RST). Since it is very difficult to find the exact solutions of the RST field equations (even in the non-relativistic limit), an approximation scheme is set up on the basis of the hydrogen-like wave functions (i.e. polynomial times exponential). For any approximation order \NN(\NN=0,1,2,3,...)\NN (\NN=0,1,2,3,...) there arises a spectrum of approximate RST solutions with the associated energies, quite similarly to the conventional treatment of positronium in the standard quantum theory (Appendix). For the lowest approximation order (\NN=0)(\NN=0) the RST prediction for the \emph{groundstate} energy exactly agrees with the conventional prediction of the standard theory. However for the higher approximation orders (\NN=1,2,3)(\NN=1,2,3), the corresponding RST prediction differs from the conventional result by (roughly) 0,9[eV]0,9 [eV] which confirms the previous estimate of the error being due to the use of the spherically symmetric approximation. The excited states require the application of higher-order approximations (\NN>>3)(\NN>>3) and are therefore not adequately described by the present orders (\NN3)(\NN\le 3).

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0803.2289,
  title  = {Non-Relativistic Positronium Spectrum in Relativistic Schroedinger Theory},
  author = {M. Mattes and M. Sorg},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0803.2289},
  year   = {2008}
}

Comments

67 pages and 3 figures