Exact matrix elements for one-photon emission from hydrogenic bound states

Abstract
The present Rapid Communication makes two points. (1) The exact matrix elements for the transitions between two hydrogenic states accompanied by the emission or absorption of one photon has been calculated in closed form without resorting to multiple expansions. Thus, retardation is taken into account exactly. (2) In addition to using these exact matrix elements to calculate transition probabilities, one can make estimates of the contribution to second-order processes of these matrix elements. In particular, it can be shown that the total contribution of bound-state matrix elements to the electromagnetic shift of the ground state is finite without renormalization.