Mass renormalization and energy level shift in non-relativistic QED

Using the Pauli-Fierz model of non-relativistic quantum electrodynamics, we calculate the binding energy of an electron in the field of a nucleus of charge Z and in presence of the quantized radiation field. We consider the case of small coupling constant α, but fixed Zα and ultraviolet cut-off Λ. We prove that after renormalizing the mass the binding energy has, to leading order in α, a finite limit as Λ goes to infinity; i.e., the cut-off can be removed. The expression for the ground state energy shift thus obtained agrees with Bethe's formula for small values of Zα, but shows a different behavior for bigger values.