The gravitational analogue to the hydrogen atom

DOI10.1088/0143-0807/28/3/007MaRDI QIDQ3445796zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Martin Kober, Ben Koch, Marcus Bleicher

Publication date 7 June 2007

Published in European Journal of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0703064

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Atomic physics (81V45) Celestial mechanics (70F15) Introductory exposition (textbooks, tutorial papers, etc.) pertaining to quantum theory (81-01)

Abstract: This article reports on a student summer project performed in 2006 at the University of Frankfurt. It is addressed to undergraduate students familiar with the basic principles of relativistic quantum mechanics and general relativity. The aim of the project was to study the Dirac equation in curved space time. To obtain the general relativistic Dirac equation we use the formulation of gravity as a gauge theory in the first part. After these general considerations we restrict the further discussion to the special case of the Schwarzschild metric. This setting corresponds to the hydrogen atom, with the electromagnetic field replaced by gravity. Although there is a singularity at the event horizon it turns out that a regular solution of the time independent Dirac equation exists. Finally the Dirac equation is solved numerically using suitable boundary conditions.

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Cited in

(5)

• Hydrogen atom and its energy level shifts in de Sitter universe
• Exact solutions of the Dirac Hamiltonian on the sphere under hyperbolic magnetic fields
• Dynamical friction in gravitational atoms
• The spectra of gravitational atoms
• Klein-Gordon equation in curved space-time

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