Theory of radiation reaction and atom self-energies: all-order perturbation theory of the generalized non-relativistic Lamb shift

Abstract

A natural all-order decorrelation procedure is described for the interaction of a single two-level atom with all modes of the radiation field which replaces the semi-classical boson approximation for the atom by an exact fermion treatment. In consequence the vacuum Lamb shift appears as twice the Bethe shift for each level separately instead of the limiting neo-classical shift obtained in the Bose theory. Stimulated emission and absorption modify the Einstein A-coefficient and the vacuum shift is extended to include a field dependent shift. The all-order decorrelated perturbation theory yields an equation of motion for the single-atom dipole moment which includes those reported from operator radiation reaction theory recently; but it also generalizes these by including the effects of stimulated processes. The method is extended to a many-atom case in which it becomes necessary to modify the procedure slightly.