1939/07/01 by V. F. Weisskopf · 1 voice · 27 citations
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Crystallography and Radiation Phenomena #Muon and positron interactions and applications #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics
paper · doi:10.1103/physrev.56.72
openalex publication_date 1939/07/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/04/21
The charge distribution, the electromagnetic field and the self-energy of an electron are investigated. It is found that, as a result of Dirac's positron theory, the charge and the magnetic dipole of the electron are extended over a finite region; the contributions of the spin and of the fluctuations of the radiation field to the self-energy are analyzed, and the reasons that the self-energy is only logarithmically infinite in positron theory are given. It is proved that the latter result holds to every approximation in an expansion of the self-energy in powers of \frace2hc. The self-energy of charged particles obeying Bose statistics is found to be quadratically divergent. Some evidence is given that the "critical length" of positron theory is as small as (h)/((mc))\ifmmode⋅\else\textperiodcentered\fiexp(\frac\ensuremath-hce2).