Coulomb Potential of a Point Mass in Theta Noncommutative Geometry

Abstract

The form of the Coulomb potential of a point in a noncommutative geometry is investigated. A distinction is made between measured distance and "coordinate" distance. The "effective" value of an operator is defined as its expectation value in a probe state of minimum coordinate dispersion. We find the effective value of the Coulomb potential to be finite at the origin, the effective charge density to be Gaussian, and the effective total electrostatic energy to be finite. The operator corresponding to the total electrostatic energy is found however to still be infinite.