Nuclear Size Corrections to the Energy Levels of Single-Electron Atoms

Abstract

A study is made of nuclear size corrections to the energy levels of single-electron atoms for the ground state of hydrogen like atoms. We consider Fermi charge distribution to the nucleus and calculate atomic energy level shift due to the finite size of the nucleus in the context of perturbation theory. The exact relativistic correction based upon the available analytical calculations is compared to the result of first-order relativistic perturbation theory and the non-relativistic approximation. We find small discrepancies between our perturbative results and those obtained from exact relativistic calculation even for large nuclear charge number Z.