English

Recoil corrections with finite nuclear size in hydrogenic systems

Atomic Physics 2025-03-31 v2

Abstract

Formulas for the combined nuclear-recoil and finite-nuclear-size effects of order (Zα)5(Z\,\alpha)^5 and (Zα)6(Z\,\alpha)^6 are derived without any expansion in the nuclear charge radius rCr_C, making them applicable to both electronic and muonic atoms. The obtained results are particularly relevant for high-precision determinations of root-mean-square charge radii from muonic atom spectroscopy. We demonstrate that calculations of the atomic isotope shift based on the widely used Breit approximation give rise to an unphysical nuclear-size contribution that is linear in the nuclear charge radius rCr_C at order (Zα)5(Z\,\alpha)^5. This spurious term vanishes in a full QED treatment, leaving the correct contribution quadratic in rCr_C. For electronic atoms, this quadratic term is significantly smaller than the spurious linear contribution.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2502.09455,
  title  = {Recoil corrections with finite nuclear size in hydrogenic systems},
  author = {Krzysztof Pachucki and Vojtěch Patkóš and Vladimir A. Yerokhin},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2502.09455},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

14 pages, 2 figures