Atoms in Flight and the Remarkable Connections between Atomic and Hadronic Physics

Abstract

Atomic physics and hadron physics are both based on Yang Mills gauge theory; in fact, quantum electrodynamics can be regarded as the zero-color limit of quantum chromodynamics. I review a number of areas where the techniques of atomic physics provide important insight into the theory of hadrons in QCD. For example, the Dirac-Coulomb equation, which predicts the spectroscopy and structure of hydrogenic atoms, has an analog in hadron physics in the form of light-front relativistic equations of motion which give a remarkable first approximation to the spectroscopy, dynamics, and structure of light hadrons. The renormalization scale for the running coupling, which is unambiguously set in QED, leads to a method for setting the renormalization scale in QCD. The production of atoms in flight provides a method for computing the formation of hadrons at the amplitude level. Conversely, many techniques which have been developed for hadron physics, such as scaling laws, evolution equations, and light-front quantization have equal utility for atomic physics, especially in the relativistic domain. I also present a new perspective for understanding the contributions to the cosmological constant from QED and QCD.

Presented at EXA2011, the International Conference on Exotic Atoms and Related Topics, Vienna, September 5-9, 2011

References in corpus (6)

• Light-Front Holography: A First Approximation to QCD
• Search for a new gauge boson in the $A^{\prime }$ Experiment (APEX)
• Production of the Smallest QED Atom: True Muonium (mu^+ mu^-)
• Maximum Wavelength of Confined Quarks and Gluons and Properties of Quantum Chromodynamics
• Expanding the concept of in-hadron condensates
• Connection between the Sivers function and the anomalous magnetic moment

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Diffractive Dissociation of Alpha Particles as a Test of Isophobic Short-Range Correlations inside Nuclei
• The Common Elements of Atomic and Hadronic Physics