Self-energy correction to the two-photon decay width in hydrogenlike atoms

We investigate the gauge invariance of the leading logarithmic radiative correction to the two-photon decay width in hydrogenlike atoms. It is shown that an effective treatment of the correction using a Lamb-shift “potential” leads to equivalent results in both the length and velocity gauges provided all relevant correction terms are taken into account. Specifically, the relevant radiative corrections are related to the energies that enter into the propagator denominators, to the Hamiltonian, to the wave functions, and to the energy conservation condition that holds between the two photons; the form of all of these effects is different in the two gauges, but the final result is shown to be gauge invariant, as it should be. Although the actual calculation only involves integrations over nonrelativistic hydrogenic Green functions, the derivation of the leading logarithmic correction can be regarded as slightly more complex than that of other typical logarithmic terms. The dominant radiative correction to the 2S two-photon decay width is found to be −2.020 536(α∕π)(Zα)² ln[(Zα)⁻²] in units of the leading nonrelativistic expression. This result is in agreement with a length-gauge calculation [S. G. Karshenboim and V. G. Ivanov, e-print physics∕9702027], where the coefficient was given as −2.025(1).