Binding energy of the positronium negative ion: Relativistic and QED energy shifts

The leading relativistic and QED corrections to the ground-state energy of the three-body system e−e+e− are calculated numerically using a Hylleraas correlated basis set. The accuracy of the nonrelativistic variational ground state is discussed with respect to the convergence of the energy with increasing size of the basis set, and also with respect to the variance of the Hamiltonian. The corrections to this energy include the lowest order Breit interaction, the vacuum polarization potential, one and two photon exchange contributions, the annihilation interaction and spin–spin contact terms. The relativistic effects and the residual interactions considered here decrease the one-electron binding energy from the nonrelativistic value of 0.012 005 070 232 980 107 69(28) au to 0.011 981 051 246(2) au (78 831 530 ± 5 MHz).