Lamb shift in the metastable states of the helium atom

Abstract

The radiative corrections of order α 3 rydbergs are evaluated for the ionization energy of the metastable states 2 1 , 3 S, of the helium atom. In the calculation of the average excitation energy k 0 , the main contribution comes from the transition to and ( ms, np ) and ( ms, ∊p ) states. The oscillator strengths for transitions to (1 s, ∊p ), (2 s, ∊p ) and (3 s, ∊p ) states are evaluated by using six-parameter wavefunction for the metastable states and a product of a hydrogenic wavefunction with Z = 2 for the s electron and a wavefunction analogous to the Hartree wavefunction for the excited p electron. Making use of these oscillator strengths and a method used by Pekeris, the values of the average excitation energies for the singlet and triplet states are found to be 77.09 ± 1.6 and 79.84 ± 1.0 rydbergs respectively. With these values of the average excitation energies, the Lamb shift corrections, including the estimate of a α 4 Ry order corrections, to the ionization energies of the singlet and triplet states become – 0.106 ± 0.018 cm -1 and –0.129 ± 0.013 cm –1 respectively. When they are added to the theoretical values of the ionization energies obtained by Pekeris, the values of the ionization energies become 32033.212 ± 0.018 an d 38454.698 ± 0.013 cm -1 compared with Herzberg’s experimental values of 32033.24 ± 0.05 an d 38454.73 ± 0.05 cm -1 for the singlet and triplet states respectively.