Derivation of the Lamb Shift with Due Account of Wave Features

for the Proton-Electron Interaction

[lamb.pdf]^*

[derivation.pdf]^**

SUMMARY

The paper informs about an important discovery, namely about a unique theoretical solution which reveals the generality of the nature of two remarkable phenomena detected in the 20th century - Lamb shift and "relict" background. The discovery is based on the new theoretical concept on the structure of elementary particles - the Dynamic Model of Elementary Particles [dynamic.pdf].

Modern physics explains the Lamb shift exclusively in the framework of the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED), which was initially developed just to account for this phenomenon observed first in the hydrogen atom. According to QED, the Lamb shift is a result of the interaction between an orbiting electron and the teeming virtual particles residing in the surrounding vacuum. Due to fluctuations of the zero field of vacuum, the orbital motion of the electron in an atom is affected to the additional chaotic motion. The main constituents of the energy "splitting", called the Lamb shift, are the effects of vacuum polarization, electron mass renormalization and anomalous magnetic moment. After relatively successful elucidation of the Lamb shift on the aforementioned basis, the QED theory has obtained the firm support, and having developed, it is considered now as the most successful theory in physics.

The "relict" background is explained in the framework of the so-called Big Bang theory. According to the latter, the Universe is filled with radiation (called the "cosmic microwave background radiation" or CMB) that is considered as the remnant heat left over from the Big Bang.

From the point of view of the QED and Big Bang theories, between both phenomena, detected at the different in scale (micro- and mega-) levels of the Universe, there is nothing in common.

Fortunately, with the development of the Dynamic Model of elementary particles (DM) [dynamic.pdf], all above phenomena obtain the natural logical explanation. And what is more, they are described without notion of hypothetical virtual particles (one of the QED important concepts) and of the Big Bang theory.

As it turned out, CMB and the Lamb shift have the same source of their origination! Both phenomena reflect the unit process. Namely they reveal the different elementary parameters of the background spectrum of the hydrogen atom [background.pdf]: wavelengths of spectral lines of the background radiation of hydrogen (detected in Cosmos just because of the immense abundance of hydrogen there, called CMB) and the energetic gaps between these lines (which are detected at the atomic level and called the Lamb shift).

The experimental observation of CMB and the Lamb Shift provides strong evidence for the theory explained an existence of zero level radiation of hydrogen (and, apparently, any) atoms in the Universe. This fact justifies in favor of the validity of the new theoretical approach, which led to the formula of the background spectrum [lamb.pdf, Eq. (16)], and thus, in favor of the DM [dynamic.pdf] that is the basis model for the derivation of the spectrum.

We can speak now about a new field of atomic spectroscopy - spectroscopy of the background (zero level) radiation of atoms!

The greatest value of this discovery resides also in that it weakens (or rather revokes) arguments of predominant adherents of the Big Bang theory, the QED theory (just its concept of virtual particles), and the Standard Model of Elementary Particles with all important consequences for physics entirely.

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* - The first variant of the paper [lamb.pdf] was sent for publication in PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS in May 02, 2004 (The code number LS8916).

** - The second variant, revised and enlarged, [derivation.pdf] was published in REVISTA de CIENCIAS EXATAS e NATURAIS, Vol. 6, No. 2, 171 - 185, (2004).