Multipole decomposition of the thermal one-loop self-energy correction for a bound atomic electron

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the thermal one-loop self-energy correction for bound electrons, revealing effects like thermal Stark and Zeeman shifts, and clarifying the consistency of finite-temperature QED with quantum mechanics perturbation theory.

Contribution

It provides a detailed multipole decomposition of the thermal self-energy correction, enhancing understanding of thermal effects in atomic systems within finite-temperature QED.

Findings

Identification of thermal Stark and Zeeman shifts

Derivation of thermal quadrupole interactions

Confirmation of QED consistency at finite temperature

Abstract

In this paper, we present a comprehensive analysis of the one-loop self-energy correction at finite temperature for the bound electron. In this approach, we study the influence of thermal radiation on atomic systems. Along the way, we found well-known effects, including thermal Stark and Zeeman shifts, as well as thermal quadrupole interactions and relativistic corrections to the multipole expansion of photon field operators. We show that the corresponding contributions arise from the decomposition of the fully relativistic expression in terms of the $\alpha Z$ parameter. The presented analysis unambiguously determines the consistency of the quantum electrodynamics theory at finite temperature (TQED) with the perturbation theory of quantum mechanics (QM). Although our analysis mainly focuses on the hydrogen atom model, their potential implications for precision spectroscopic experiments are discussed.