Abstract
We study the energy of relativistic electrons and positrons interacting via the second quantized Coulomb potential in the field of a nucleus of charge Z within the Hartree-Fock approximation. We show that the associated functional has a minimizer. In addition, all minimizers are purely electronic states, they are projections, and fulfill the no-pair Dirac-Fock equations.
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Communicated by B. Simon
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Acknowledgement We thank K. Yajima and M. Huber for critical reading of a preliminary version of the manuscript and D. Hundertmark for useful and enjoyable discussions concerning various aspects of this paper. One of us, JMB, thanks B. Grébert for useful discussions concerning Sect. 3. Financial support of the Ministère de l’Education Nationale, de la Recherche et de la Technologie through ACI Blanche, of the Bayerisch-Französisches Hochschulzentrum, of the European Union through the IHP network “Analysis and Quantum”, contract HPRN-CT-2002-00277, are gratefully acknowledged. Part of the work was done while three of us, JMB, BH, and HS, were visiting the Mittag-Leffler Institute; its support is also gratefully acknowledged.
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Barbaroux, JM., Farkas, W., Helffer, B. et al. On the Hartree-Fock Equations of the Electron-Positron Field. Commun. Math. Phys. 255, 131–159 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00220-004-1156-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00220-004-1156-x