Published August 5, 2005 | Version v1
Journal article

Analytic representation of the Dirac equation

  • 1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059 (United States)
  • 2. Computational Physics Laboratory, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059 (United States)

Description

In this paper, we construct an analytical separation (diagonalization) of the full (minimal coupling) Dirac equation into particle and antiparticle components. The diagonalization is analytic in that it is achieved without transforming the wavefunctions, as is done by the Foldy-Wouthuysen method, and reveals the nonlocal time behaviour of the particle-antiparticle relationship. We then show explicitly that the Pauli equation is not completely valid for the study of the Dirac hydrogen atom problem in s-states (hyperfine splitting). We conclude that there are some open mathematical problems with any attempt to explicitly show that the Dirac equation is insufficient to explain the full hydrogen spectrum. If the perturbation method can be justified, our analysis suggests that the use of cut-offs in QED is already justified by the eigenvalue analysis that supports it. Using a new method, we are able to effect separation of variables for full coupling, solve the radial equation and provide graphs of the probability density function for the 2p- and 2s-states, and compare them with those of the Dirac-Coulomb case

Availability note (English)

Available online at http://stacks.iop.org/0305-4470/38/6955/a5_31_006.pdf or at the Web site for the Journal of Physics. A, Mathematical and General (ISSN 1361-6447) http://www.iop.org/

Additional details

Publishing Information

Journal Title
Journal of Physics. A, Mathematical and General
Journal Volume
38
Journal Issue
31
Journal Page Range
p. 6955-6976
ISSN
0305-4470
CODEN
JPHAC5