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Can spacetime curvature induced corrections to Lamb shift be observable?

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Abstract

The Lamb shift results from the coupling of an atom to vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields, so corrections are expected to arise when the spacetime is curved since the vacuum fluctuations are modified by the presence of spacetime curvature. Here, we calculate the curvature-induced correction to the Lamb shift outside a spherically symmetric object and demonstrate that this correction can be remarkably significant outside a compact massive astrophysical body. For instance, for a neutron star or a stellar mass black hole, the correction is ~ 25% at a radial distance of 4GM/c 2, ~ 16% at 10GM/c 2 and as large as ~ 1.6% even at 100GM/c 2, where M is the mass of the object, G the Newtonian constant, and c the speed of light. In principle, we can look at the spectra from a distant compact super-massive body to find such corrections. Therefore, our results suggest a possible way of detecting fundamental quantum effects in astronomical observations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Physics and Key Laboratory of Low Dimensional Quantum Structures and Quantum Control of Ministry of Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan, 410081, China

    Wenting Zhou & Hongwei Yu

  2. Center for Nonlinear Science and Department of Physics, Ningbo University, Ningbo, Zhejiang, 315211, China

    Hongwei Yu

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  1. Wenting Zhou
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  2. Hongwei Yu
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Correspondence to Hongwei Yu.

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ArXiv ePrint: 1204.2015

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Zhou, W., Yu, H. Can spacetime curvature induced corrections to Lamb shift be observable?. J. High Energ. Phys. 2012, 172 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2012)172

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP10(2012)172

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