Quantum electrodynamics of heavy ions and atoms

We have calculated the 6s-7s parity nonconserving (PNC) E1 transition amplitude, E_{PNC}, in cesium. We have used an improved all-order technique in the calculation of the correlations and have included all significant contributions to E_{PNC}. Our final value E_{PNC} = 0.904 (1 +/- 0.5 %) \times 10^{-11}iea_{B}(-Q_{W}/N) has half the uncertainty claimed in old calculations used for the interpretation of Cs PNC experiments. The resulting nuclear weak charge Q_{W} for Cs devia...

This manuscript is based on the Summary and Overview talk given at the "The International Conference of Strongly Correlated Electronic Systems" (SCES '04), July 26-30, at Karlsruhe, Germany. After highlighting some of the principal new experimental developments in heavy fermions presented at the conference, I turn to two kinds of theoretical questions. (1) What is understood of the fermi-liquid state of the heavy fermions and what is not, but may reasonably well be understood...

The nuclear recoil effect on the $g$ factor of H- and Li-like heavy ions is evaluated to all orders in $\alpha Z$. The calculations include an approximate treatment of the nuclear size and the electron-electron interaction corrections to the recoil effect. As the result, the second largest contribution to the theoretical uncertainty of the $g$-factor values of $^{208}$Pb$^{79+}$ and $^{238}$U$^{89+}$ is strongly reduced. Special attention is paid to tests of the QED recoil ef...

We derive an approximate expression for a "radiative potential" which can be used to calculate QED strong Coulomb field radiative corrections to energies and electric dipole (E1) transition amplitudes in many-electron atoms with an accuracy of a few percent. The expectation value of the radiative potential gives radiative corrections to the energies. Radiative corrections to E1 amplitudes can be expressed in terms of the radiative potential and its energy derivative (the low-...

In a recent Letter [B. K. Sahoo, B. P. Das, and H. Spiesberger, Phys. Rev. D 103, L111303 (2021)], a calculation of the parity violating 6S-7S E1 amplitude in Cs is reported, claiming an uncertainty of just 0.3%. In this Comment, we point out that key contributions have been omitted, and the theoretical uncertainty has been significantly underestimated. In particular, the contribution of missed QED radiative corrections amounts to several times the claimed uncertainty.

Parity nonconservation due to the nuclear weak charge is considered. We demonstrate that the radiative corrections to this effect due to the vacuum fluctuations of the characteristic size larger than the nuclear radius $r_0$ and smaller than the electron Compton wave-length $\lambda_C$ are enhanced because of the strong electric field of the nucleus. The parameter that allows one to classify the corrections is the large logarithm $\ln(\lambda_C/r_0)$. The vacuum polarization ...

Comparison of precision frequency measurements to quantum electrodynamics (QED) predictions for Rydberg states of hydrogen-like ions can yield information on values of fundamental constants and test theory. With the results of a calculation of a key QED contribution reported here, the uncertainty in the theory of the energy levels is reduced to a level where such a comparison can yield an improved value of the Rydberg constant.

I shall try to say a few words about two particular ways in which my own work has a certain relation to your work with heavy ions. My title is therefore "Quantum Optics and Heavy Ion Physics".

Our improved calculation of the nuclear spin-independent parity violating electric dipole transition amplitude ($E1_{PV}$) for $6s ~ ^2S_{1/2} - 7s ~ ^2S_{1/2}$ in $^{133}$Cs in combination with the most accurate (0.3\%) measurement of this quantity yields a new value for the nuclear weak charge $Q_W=-73.71(26)_{ex} (23)_{th}$ against the Standard Model (SM) prediction $Q_W^{\text{SM}}=-73.23(1)$. The advances in our calculation of $E1_{PV}$ have been achieved by using a vari...

We have studied the correlation effects in Cs and Fr arising from the interplay of the residual Coulomb interaction to all orders and the neutral weak interaction which gives rise to the parity violating electric dipole transition to first order, within the framework of the relativistic coupled-cluster theory which circumvents the constrain of explicitly summing over the intermediate states. We observe that, the contributions arising from the perturbed doubly excited states a...