Nuclear polarization study: new frontiers for tests of QED in heavy highly charged ions.

A systematic investigation of the nuclear polarization effects in one- and few-electron heavy ions is presented. The nuclear polarization corrections in the zeroth and first orders in 1/Z are evaluated to the binding energies, the hyperfine splitting, and the bound-electron g factor. It is shown that the nuclear polarization contributions can be substantially canceled simultaneously with the rigid nuclear corrections. This allows for new prospects for probing the QED effects in a strong electromagnetic field and the determination of fundamental constants.