A UNIFIED TREATMENT OF THE NONRELATIVISTIC AND RELATIVISTIC HYDROGEN-ATOM .1. THE WAVE-FUNCTIONS

In this and the following two papers in this series it is shown how the radial part of non-relativistic and relativistic hydrogenic bound-state calculations involving the Green functions can be presented in a unified manner. The angular part of such calculations, being well understood, is performed in the standard way. In this, the first paper, it is shown how a suitable linear transformation of the two relativistic radial wavefunctions allows the pair of relativistic coupled differential equations to be written as two uncoupled second-order equations which are simple generalizations of the corresponding non-relativistic equation. This transformation is presented in a manner which allows for a simple extension to the Green function problem. The transformed relativistic wavefunctions are explicitly derived and the normalization is presented in a novel and simple way. A new derivation is given for the recursion relations for both non-relativistic and relativistic radial wavefunctions, some of which are new. These relations are required in the subsequent papers.