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arXiv:0907.4444 · Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Spin exchange in hydrogen–antihydrogen collisions

Alexei Yu. Voronin, Piotr Froelich

Published Jun 1, 2009• 2 citations
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Abstract

We consider the spin-exchange in ultracold collisions of hydrogen ($H$) and antihydrogen ($\bar{H}$) atoms. The cross sections for transitions between various hyperfine states are calculated. We show that the process of spin exchange in $\bar{H}-H$ collisions is basically driven by the strong force between proton and antiproton, that spin-exchange cross-sections are proportional to the difference of singlet and triplet strong force S-wave scattering lengths, while the strong force effects are enhanced about $10^9$ times due to long range atomic forces. We show that any difference in hyperfine structure of $H$ and $\bar{H}$ (CPT violation) manifests itself in radical change of spin-exchange cross-sections energy behavior.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/42/12/125204

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We consider the spin-exchange in ultracold collisions of hydrogen (HHH) and antihydrogen (Hˉ\bar{H}Hˉ) atoms. The cross sections for transitions between various hyperfine states are calculated. We show that the process of spin exchange in Hˉ−H\bar{H}-HHˉ−H collisions is basically driven by the strong force between proton and antiproton, that spin-exchange cross-sections are proportional to the difference of singlet and triplet strong force S-wave scattering lengths, while the strong force effects are enhanced about 10910^9109 times due to long range atomic forces. We show that any difference in hyperfine structure of HHH and Hˉ\bar{H}Hˉ (CPT violation) manifests itself in radical change of spin-exchange cross-sections energy behavior.
We consider the hyperfine transitions in ultracold collisions of hydrogen (H) and antihydrogen (H‾)(\overline{\text{H}})(H) atoms. The cross sections for transitions between various spin states are calculated. We show that hyperfine transitions in $\overline{\text{H}}\ensuremath{-}\text{H}$ collisions are basically driven by the strong force between proton and antiproton.
We present a treatment of cold hydrogen-antihydrogen collisions based on the asymptotic properties of atom-antiatom interactions. We derive general formulas for the elastic and inelastic cross sections and for the scattering lengths and analyze their sensitivity to the parameters characterizing the inelasticity of the collision process. Given the inelasticity, we obtain bounds for the complex scattering length. We investigate the influence of strong nuclear forces and the isotope effects in HH‾\text{H}\overline{\text{H}}HH and DH‾\text{D}\overline{\text{H}}DH collisions and demonstrate enhancement of these effects due to the presence of the near-threshold narrow HH‾\text{H}\overline{\text{H}}HH (DH‾)(\text{D}\overline{\text{H}})(DH) states. The values of the elastic and inelastic cross sections with simultaneous account of rearrangement and strong forces are presented. General expressions for the (complex) energies of the near-threshold HH‾\text{H}\overline{\text{H}}HH states are obtained.
We present a unified multichannel approach to calculate electron spin-exchange and spin-flipping transition cross sections for collisions of H with H, H with T, and T with T. We use the theory to calculate the hyperfine quenching cross sections for collision energies that range from 111 mK to thermal temperatures. We show that spin-flipping transitions are induced by the splitting of the $b {}^{3}{\ensuremath{\Sigma}}_{u}$ Born-Oppenheimer potential via the long-range magnetic interactions among electrons. We find that the spin-flipping cross sections in the tritium dimer are about a magnitude larger than that predicted by mass scaling the H-H cross sections. For the former, we show that the spin-exchange cross sections are several magnitudes larger, at cold temperatures, than that of the hydrogen system. We compare the results of the multichannel approach with those obtained using approximate methods such as the degenerate internal-state, the elastic, and Born approximations and discuss their respective range of validity.
The stability of antimatter in contact with matter has been investigated. The interaction between hydrogen and antihydrogen is considered as the prototype reaction. We have focused interest on the rates for proton-antiproton and/or electron-positron annihilation during hydrogen-antihydrogen collisions at low energies. In particular, we have concentrated on the calculation of the rates for the rearrangement reaction leading to formation of protonium and positronium, ending inevitably in particle-antiparticle annihilation. The cross section for the rearrangement collision has been calculated in a fully quantum-mechanical treatment. Additionally, we have calculated cross sections for direct annihilation during the collision process, which was found to be comparable to the rearrangement cross section. The elastic cross section and its low-energy limit, given by the scattering length, have been calculated, allowing, by comparison to the inelastic processes, a prediction for the efficiency of cooling antihydrogen via collisions with ultracold hydrogen atoms.
Potential scattering and spin-exchange scattering cross sections in the energy range from 10 -3 cm -1 to 100 cm -1 have been calculated numerically for hydrogen atoms in collision based on the most accurate Kołos-Woniewicz adiabatic potentials available at present. The scattering lengths for the singlet and triplet states are calculated to be a 0 s =0.595 a.u. and a 0 t =1.34 a.u., respectively. The quasi-bound state with ν=14 and l =4 is found to be at E =1.675 cm -1 above the dissociation limit. The thermally averaged spin-exchange cross section has the low temperature limit \barσ ex (0 K)=0.982 A 2 with a minimum \barσ ex (2.5 K)=0.329 A 2 .
We present an experimental study of the quantum gas of atomic hydrogen in a strong magnetic field (4.6 T). The gas is compressed to densities of ~1018 cm−3 at temperatures of 0.2–0.5 K. We observed shifts of the electron spin resonance (ESR) lines caused by the exchange interaction in atomic collisions (clock shift) and the long-range dipolar interactions. The clock shift was found to be vanishingly small in a doubly polarized gas, in contrast to a mixture of two hyperfine states. The difference is explained by properly including quantum statistical effects in the treatment of atomic collisions. From our data, we extract the difference between the triplet and singlet s-wave scattering lengths, at−as=60(10) pm, in agreement with existing theories. At densities above 1017 cm−3, weakly resolved structures appeared in the ESR spectra, interpreted in terms of electron spin waves. We consider exchange and dipolar interactions to possibly induce the spin waves.