On the stability and spectral properties of the two-dimensional Brown–Ravenhall operator with a short-range potential

Abstract

The Brown–Ravenhall operator was initially proposed as an alternative to describe the fermion–fermion interaction via Coulomb potential and subject to relativity. This operator is defined in terms of the associated Dirac operator and the projection onto the positive spectral subspace of the free Dirac operator. In this paper, we propose to analyze a modified version of the Brown–Ravenhall operator in two-dimensions. More specifically, we consider the Brown–Ravenhall operator with a short-range attractive potential given by a Bessel–Macdonald function (also known as K0-potential) using the Foldy–Wouthuysen unitary transformation. Initially, we prove that the two-dimensional Brown–Ravenhall operator with K0-potential is bounded from below when the coupling constant is below a specified critical value (a property also referred to as stability). A major feature of this model is the fact that it does not cease to be bounded below even if the coupling constant is above the specified critical value. We also investigate the nature of the spectrum of this operator, in particular the location of the essential spectrum, and the existence of eigenvalues, which are either isolated from the essential spectrum or embedded in it.