Klein paradox in the Breit equation

Abstract

We demonstrate that in the Breit equation with a central potentialV(r) having the propertyV(r ₀)=E there appears a Klein paradox atr=r ₀. This phenomenon, besides the previously found Klein paradox arr→∞ appearing ifV(r)→∞ atr→∞, seems to indicate that in the Breit equation valid in the singleparticle theory the sea of particle-antiparticle pairs is not well separated from the considered two-body configuration. We conjecture that both phenomena should be absent from the Salpeter equation which is consistent with the hole theory. We prove this conjecture in the limit ofm ⁽¹⁾→∞ andm ⁽²⁾→∞, where we neglect the terms ∼1/m ⁽¹⁾ and 1/m ⁽²⁾. In Appendix I we show that in the Breit equation the oscillations accumulating atr=r ₀ in the case ofm ⁽¹⁾≠m ⁽²⁾ are normalizable to the Dirac δ-function. In Appendix II the analogical statement is justified for the nonoscillating singular behaviour appearing atr=r ₀ in the case ofm ⁽¹⁾=m ⁽²⁾.