The 1-loop self-energy of an electron in a strong external magnetic field revisited

TL;DR

This paper revisits the calculation of the 1-loop self-energy of an electron in a strong magnetic field, providing a more precise estimate beyond the common ln L^2 approximation, highlighting the importance of including single logarithmic contributions.

Contribution

The paper derives a more accurate expression for the electron self-energy in strong magnetic fields, surpassing the traditional ln L^2 truncation and emphasizing the need for advanced resummation techniques.

Findings

The ln L^2 truncation overestimates the self-energy by 45% at L=100.

Including single logarithmic terms significantly improves the accuracy of the self-energy estimate.

The results suggest that higher-loop resummation and vacuum polarization effects are necessary for precise calculations.

Abstract

I calculate the 1-loop self-energy of the lowest Landau level an electron of mass m in a strong, constant and uniform external magnetic field B, beyond its always used truncation at (ln L)^2, L=|e|B/m^2. This is achieved by evaluating the integral deduced in 1953 by Demeur and incompletely calculated in 1969 by Jancovici, which I recover from Schwinger's techniques of calculation. It yields \delta m \simeq (\alpha*m/(4*\pi))*[(\ln L -\gamma_E -3/2)^2 -9/4 +\pi/(\beta-1) + \pi^2/6 +\pi*\Gamma[1-\beta]/L^{\beta-1} +(1/L)*(\pi/(2-\beta)-5) +{\cal O}(1/L^{>= 2})] with \beta \approx 1.175 for 75 =< L =< 10000. . The (\ln L)^2 truncation exceeds the precise estimate by 45% at L=100 and by more at lower values of L, due to neglecting, among others, the single logarithmic contribution. This is doubly unjustified because it is large and because it is needed to fulfill appropriate renormalization conditions. Technically challenging improvements look therefore necessary, for example when resumming higher loops and incorporating the effects of large B on the photonic vacuum polarization, like investigated in recent years.