I am confused of whether or not the expected electromagnetic field generated by the point-like electric charge of the electron distributed smoothly across space as a probability distribution creates the presence of an effective field mass.
I know that the probability current of the electron is ⟨γ0k⟩, which is conserved. Multiplying the probability current of the electron by its total charge q gives the charge current density Jk=q⟨γ0k⟩. From the current I can calculate the expected four-potential field as Ak(r,t)=∫Jk(r′,t−c/r′)|r−r′|d3r′.
From Ak I can calculate the expected electromagnetic fields as Fjk=∂jAk−∂kAj. Finally I can calculate the expected electromagnetic energy as Ueff=18π∫FjkFjkd3r.
Is Meff a real observable? I was unable to find an analytic solution for Meff, however I did compute Meff for Gaussian distributed probability functions for the electron with varying standard deviation (spacial localization), and I noticed that for standard deviations of the order of 10−10 meters (lattice size), Meff was very small in comparison to the electron's rest mass. When the standard deviation was 10−15 meters (nucleus size), the Meff was comparable in size to the rest mass of the electron.
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