Hydrogen atom in the gravitational fields of topological defects

We consider a hydrogen atom in the background spacetimes generated by an infinitely thin cosmic string and by a pointlike global monopole. In both cases, we find the solutions of the corresponding Dirac equations and we determine the energy levels of the atom. We investigate how the geometric and topological features of these spacetimes lead to shifts in the energy levels as compared with the flat Minkowski spacetime.