Can e+e- peaks be explained as resonances in bhabha scattering?

We study the behavior of two-body continuum states in QED, with special emphasis on the possible appearance of resonances. The starting point is an approximate two-body equation obtained through use of a single-time truncation in the one-photon approximation. A derivation of the relevant equation for scalar QED (the Wick-Cutkosky model) is given to illustrate our method, which has previously been applied to the case of the full QED theory. We then investigate scattering resonances in the J=0 channels for both scalar QED and the standard QED, and show that within the current approximation no resonances are found that can explain the long-lived states observed in heavy-ion scattering at the GSI. We comment on other calculations that have reported positive results for the same problem. © 1993 The American Physical Society.