English

Theory of the Lamb shift in hydrogen and light hydrogen-like ions

Atomic Physics 2019-08-19 v3

Abstract

Theoretical calculations of the Lamb shift provide the basis required for the determination of the Rydberg constant from spectroscopic measurements in hydrogen. The recent high-precision determination of the proton charge radius drastically reduced the uncertainty in the hydrogen Lamb shift originating from the proton size. As a result, the dominant theoretical uncertainty now comes from the two- and three-loop QED effects, which calls for further advances in their calculations. We review the present status of theoretical calculations of the Lamb shift in hydrogen and light hydrogen-like ions with the nuclear charge number up to Z=5Z = 5. Theoretical errors due to various effects are critically examined and estimated.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1809.00462,
  title  = {Theory of the Lamb shift in hydrogen and light hydrogen-like ions},
  author = {Vladimir A. Yerokhin and Krzysztof Pachucki and Vojtech Patkos},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1809.00462},
  year   = {2019}
}