Bound State Quantum Field Theory: Application To Atoms And Ions

Two aspects of the book should appeal to a wide audience. One aspect would be the comprehensive coverage on the latest updates and developments this book provides, besides Bethe and Salpeter's handbook on hydrogen and helium, which is still widely regarded as useful. The other aspect would be that a major part of the book uses effective field theory, a way of including quantum electrodynamics (QED) that starts with the familiar Schrodinger equation, and then adds perturbing operators derived in a rather simple manner that incorporates QED. Effective field theory is used in a number of fields including particle physics and nuclear physics, and readership is targeted at these communities too. Additionally, students using this book in conjunction with Peskin's textbook could learn to carry out fairly sophisticated calculations in QED in order to learn the technique, as this book comes with practical calculations. Also included is a very clear exposition of the Bethe-Salpeter equation, which is simply either ignored or poorly treated in other literatures, to describe the use of S-matrix theory for calculations of the properties of highly charged ions.