Relativistic wave equation for a boson-fermion system

We present a two-body relativistic wave equation for a system composed of a boson and a fermion. One-body equations such as the Dirac and the Klein-Gordon equations are often used as an approximate equation for relativistic two-body systems. However, when the masses of two particles are not very different, the use of one-body equations comes into question. We use the Feshbach-Villars formalism for the boson so that the wave equation can be given in the form of an eigenvalue equation for the Hamiltonian. Differences between our equation and the one-body equations are examined and illustrated in a numerical example of a two-body system with scalar and vector potentials.Communicated by: W. Weise