Nuclear polarization effects in spectra of multicharged ions

Abstract

We evaluate the nuclear-polarization energy shifts for one-electron 208 82Pb and 238 92U ions. In contrast to previous calculations, the effect of nuclear polarizability is found to be essentially of minor significance for high-precision measurements of the Lamb shift in heavy multicharged ions. The calculations are carried out employing different numerical methods. We also provide a comparison of our numerical results with analytical estimates.