I have a question that seems to not been answered directly, i tried using the empheq package to make boxes around equation (in the align environment ) and it works, but i want a wide box which occupies the hole textwidth and includes the equation number.
Here is an example code:
\documentclass[]{article}
\usepackage{amsmath}
\usepackage{empheq}
\usepackage{xcolor}
\empheqset{box=\fcolorbox{white}[gray]{0.85}}
\begin{document}
\begin{empheq}{align}
U_e(r_A)=&-\frac{\hbar\mu_0}{8\pi^2c}\int\limits_0^\infty d\xi\xi^3\alpha(i\xi)\sum\limits_{l=1}^{\infty}(2l+1)\bigg\{r_{lTE}[h^{(1)}_l(kr_A)]^2\nonumber\\
&+r_{lTM}\bigg[l(l+1)\frac{[h^{(1)}_l(kr_A)]^2}{(kr_A)^2}+\frac{[kr_Ah^{(1)}_l(kr_A)]'^2}{(kr_A)^2}\bigg]
\bigg\}
\end{empheq}
\end{document}
mdframed
for such things.