Long Range Electromagnetic Effects involving Neutral Systems and Effective Field Theory

TL;DR

This paper employs effective field theory to analyze long-range electromagnetic interactions involving neutral particles, revealing classical and quantum effects, including new results for particles with spin.

Contribution

It introduces a systematic EFT approach to long-range electromagnetic effects in neutral systems, extending previous results to include spinning particles.

Findings

Classical and quantum long-range effects identified

Results consistent with previous spinless cases

New effects discovered for particles with spin

Abstract

We analyze the electromagnetic scattering of massive particles with and without spin wherein one particle (or both) is electrically neutral. Using the techniques of effective field theory, we isolate the leading long distance effects, both classical and quantum mechanical. For spinless systems results are identical to those obtained earlier via more elaborate dispersive methods. However, we also find new results if either or both particles carry apin.