Hydrogen atom in space with a compactified extra dimension and potential defined by Gauss’ law

Abstract

We investigate the consequences of one extra spatial dimension for the stability and energy spectrum of the non-relativistic hydrogen atom with a potential defined by Gauss’ law, i.e. proportional to 1/|x|2. The additional spatial dimension is considered to be either infinite or curled-up in a circle of radius R. In both cases, the energy spectrum is bounded from below for charges smaller than the same critical value and unbounded from below otherwise. As a consequence of compactification, negative energy eigenstates appear: if R is smaller than a quarter of the Bohr radius, the corresponding Hamiltonian possesses an infinite number of bound states with minimal energy extending at least to the ground state of the hydrogen atom.