Relativistically extended Blanchard recurrence relation for hydrogenic matrix elements

General recurrence relations for arbitrary non-diagonal, radial hydrogenic matrix elements are derived in Dirac relativistic quantum mechanics, Our ap proach is based on a generalization of the second hypervirial method previo usly employed in the non-relativistic Schrodinger case. A relativistic vers ion of the Pasternack-Sternheimer relation is thence obtained in the diagon al (i.e, total angular momentum and parity the same) case, from such a rela tion an expression for the relativistic virial theorem is deduced. To contr ibute to the utility of the relations, explicit expressions for the radial matrix elements of functions of the form r(lambda) and Br-lambda (where bet a is a Dirac matrix) are presented.