A Physical Insight into the Origin of the Corrections to the Magnetic Moment of Free and Bound Electron
- 1 National Institute for Laser, Plasma and Radiation Physics, Lab 22, Bucharest-Magurele, Romania
Abstract
The main goal of the present work is a unitary approach of the physical origin of the corrections to the magnetic moment of free and bound electron. Based on this approach, estimations of lowest order corrections were easily obtained. In the non-relativistic limit, the Dirac electron appears as a distribution of charge and current extended over a region of linear dimension of the order of Compton wavelength, which generates its magnetic moment. The e.m. mass (self-energy) of electron outside this region does not participate to this internal dynamics, and consequently does not contribute to the mass term in the formula of the magnetic moment. This is the physical origin of the small increase of the magnetic moment of free electron compared to the value given by Dirac equation. We give arguments that this physical interpretation is self-consistent with the QED approach. The bound electron being localized, it has kinetic energy which means a mass increase from a relativistic point of view, which determines a magnetic moment decrease (relativistic Breit correction). On the other hand, the e.m. mass of electron decreases at the formation of the bound state due to coulomb interaction with the nucleus. We estimated this e.m. mass decrease of bound electron only in its internal dynamics region, and from it the corresponding increase of the magnetic moment (QED correction). The corrections to the mass value are at the origin of the lowest order corrections to the magnetic moment of free and bound electron.
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