Calculation of the Lamb shift in neutral alkali metals

The one-loop Lamb shift is calculated for the ground state of the neutral alkali metals lithium through francium. The method used is Furry representation QED, defined in terms of a variety of local potentials. The method is exact in binding corrections, but is potential dependent, Significant differences with known Lamb shift results for lithium are found, and it is shown that large corrections result from a partial set of screening corrections. Comparison with other calculations is made.