Bound States of the One-Dimensional Maxwell--Schr\"odinger Equations

Abstract

We prove the existence of a ground state of the Maxwell--Schr\"odinger equations in one spatial dimension, describing a specified amount of free charge under the influence of a fixed charge. For one case (equal free and fixed charge, i.e., a neutral atom), we introduce a new type of quartic Banach space, in which the Hamiltonian is naturally coercive. We also show that for a point charge, for any ratio of charge such that the ground state exists, it is symmetric and decreasing.