Low-energy effects in brane worlds: Liennard-Wiechert potentials and Hydrogen Lamb shift

Abstract

Testing extra dimensions at low-energies may lead to interesting effects. In this work a test point charge is taken to move uniformly in the 3-dimensional subspace of a (3+$n$)-brane embedded in a (3+$n$+1)-space with $n$ compact and one warped infinite spatial extra dimensions. We found that the electromagnetic potentials of the point charge match standard Liennard-Wiechert's at large distances but differ from them close to it. These are finite at the position of the charge and produce finite self-energies. We also studied a localized Hydrogen atom and take the deviation from the standard Coulomb potential as a perturbation. This produces a Lamb shift that is compared with known experimental data to set bounds for the parameter of the model. This work provides details and extends results reported in a previous Letter.