A rigorous approach to relativistic corrections of bound state energies for spin-1/2 particles

Under fairly general conditions on the interactions we prove holomorphy of the Dirac resolvent around its nonrelativistic limit. As a consequences, perturbation theory in terms of resolvents (instead of Hamiltonians) yields holomorphy of Dirac eigenvalues and eigenfunctions with respect to c-1 and a new method of calculating relativistic corrections to bound state energies. Due to a formulation in an abstract setting our method is applicable in many different concrete situation. In particular our approach covers the case of the relavistic hydrogen atom in external electromagnetic fields. (Author)