Mathematical Physics Seminar

Within non-relativistic quantum electrodnamics, atoms interacting with the radiation field are expected to have a ground state. It is further expected that the ground state exists independently of the size of the coupling constant $\alpha$ and the size of the ultraviolet cutoff $\Lambda$. This has been shown in a satisfactory fashion in the fixed nucleus approximation. For movable nuclei interacting with the radiation field, however, only partial results are available. In this talk I review the results so far and present some recent ones obtained in collaboration with Miyao and Spohn.