Two-Photon Decays Reexamined: Cascade Contributions and Gauge Invariance
arXiv:0807.0648 · doi:10.1088/1751-8113/41/15/155307
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to calculate the two-photon decay rate corresponding to the two-photon transitions nS->1S and nD->1S in hydrogenlike ions with a low nuclear charge number Z (for principal quantum numbers n = 2,...,8. Numerical results are obtained within a nonrelativistic framework, and the results are found to scale approximately as (Z alpha)^6/n^3, where alpha is the fine-structure constant. We also attempt to clarify a number of subtle issues regarding the treatment of the coherent, quasi-simultaneous emission of the two photons as opposed to one-photon cascades. In particular, the gauge invariance of the decay rate is shown explicitly.
10 pages, LaTeX
References in corpus (1)
Cited by in corpus (4)
- Two-photon transitions in primordial hydrogen recombination
- Virtual Resonant States in Two-Photon Decay Processes: Lower-Order Terms, Subtractions, and Physical Interpretations
- Separation of Transitions with Two Quantum Jumps from Cascades
- Relativistic (Z alpha)^2-Corrections and Leading Quantum Electrodynamic Corrections to the Two-Photon Decay Rate of Ionic States