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Communications in Theoretical Physics

Elastic scattering of metastable positronium from antihydrogen

Yi Zhang, Jun-Yi Zhang

Published Jan 21, 2025• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract The study of collision between metastable positronium (Ps) and antihydrogen ( H ¯ ) is crucial for precision experiments involving H ¯ . In this paper, we investigate the elastic scattering between H ¯ and Ps(2s) by combining the confined variational method with the projection method, for scattering energies from 0.0245 eV to 0.068 eV. Our calculations provide accurate phase shifts and cross sections for the 1,3 S and 1,3 P symmetries. Near the binding threshold, the rapid increase in the total cross section may be attributed to the P-wave resonance effect. Additionally, we determined the S-wave scattering lengths to be 9.34 a 0 and 5.81 a 0 for singlet and triplet elastic scattering, respectively.

DOI
10.1088/1572-9494/adac3b

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Abstract The study of collision between metastable positronium (Ps) and antihydrogen ( H ¯ ) is crucial for precision experiments involving H ¯ . In this paper, we investigate the elastic scattering between H ¯ and Ps(2s) by combining the confined variational method with the projection method, for scattering energies from 0.0245 eV to 0.068 eV. Our calculations provide accurate phase shifts and cross sections for the 1,3 S and 1,3 P symmetries. Near the binding threshold, the rapid increase in the total cross section may be attributed to the P-wave resonance effect. Additionally, we determined the S-wave scattering lengths to be 9.34 a 0 and 5.81 a 0 for singlet and triplet elastic scattering, respectively.
Abstract We present a 4-body calculation of scattering between an antihydrogen atom ( H ¯ ) and a positronium (Ps) aiming at the prediction of cross sections for the production of antihydrogen positive ions H ¯ + . The antihydrogen positive ions are expected to be a useful source of ultra-cold anti-atoms for the test of matter-antimatter gravity. We convert the Schrödinger equation to a set of coupled integro-differential equations that involve intermediate states which facilitate the internal region description of the scattering wavefunction. They are solved using a compact finite difference method. Our framework is extended to scattering between an excited Ps and H. Cross sections of the reactions, Ps (1s/2s/3s) H ¯ → e − + H ¯ + , in s-wave collisions, are calculated. It is found that the reactions originating from Ps (1s/2s) + H ¯ produce H ¯ + with a constant cross section within 0.05 eV above the threshold while the reaction cross section from Ps (3s) decreases as the collision energy increases in the same energy interval. Just above the threshold, the cross section of H ¯ + production from Ps (3s) + H ¯ in s-wave collision is 7.8 times larger than that from Ps (1s) + H ¯ in s-wave and 2.3 times larger than that from Ps (2s) + H ¯ in s-wave. The near-threshold de-excitation reaction from Ps (3s) + H ¯ occurs more rapidly than the H ¯ + production.
We investigate the four-body Coulomb process of low-energy elastic positronium-hydrogen (Ps-H) scattering below the Ps(n=2n=2n=2) excitation threshold using scattering wave functions that include Hylleraas-type correlation terms. Using the complex Kohn variational method, we compute phase shifts through the 1,3H^{1,3}H1,3H wave and obtain highly accurate 1,3S^{1,3}S1,3S- and 1,3P^{1,3}P1,3P-wave phase shifts. The complex Kohn variational results compare well to a number of other calculations for this system. We present elastic differential, elastic integrated, and momentum transfer cross sections, and for the singlet, resonances through the 1F^{1}F1F wave. The differential cross section exhibits interesting features, including a change from slightly backward peaked to forward peaked scattering as the energy of the incident positronium increases and rich structure due to multiple resonances near the Ps(n=2n=2n=2) threshold. We also give a detailed analysis of the scattering lengths and effective ranges using multiple effective range theories.
Positronium-hydrogen (Ps-H) scattering is of interest, as it is a fundamental four-body Coulomb problem. We have investigated low-energy Ps-H scattering below the Ps(n=2) excitation threshold using the Kohn variational method and variants of the method with a trial wavefunction that includes highly correlated Hylleraas-type short-range terms. We give an elegant formalism that combines all Kohn-type variational methods into a single form. Along with this, we have also developed a general formalism for Kohn-type matrix elements that allows us to evaluate arbitrary partial waves with a single codebase. Computational strategies we have developed and use in this work will also be discussed.With these methods, we have computed phase shifts for the first six partial waves for both the singlet and triplet states. The 1S and 1P phase shifts are highly accurate results and could potentially be viewed as benchmark results. Resonance positions and widths for the 1S-, 1P-, 1D-, and 1F-waves have been calculated.We present elastic integrated, elastic differential, and momentum transfer cross sections using all six partial waves and note interesting features of each. We use multiple effective range theories, including several that explicitly take into account the long-range van der Waals interaction, to investigate scattering lengths for the 1,3S and 1,3P partial waves and effective ranges for the 1,3S-wave.
We have continued our investigation into the elastic scattering of positronium atoms by hydrogen atoms, extending the work to include the spin-one (triplet) state of the two electrons. Once again we have extracted the SSS-wave phase shifts from normalizable trial functions by examining the spatial behavior of the center-of-mass wave functions. An effective-range expansion linear in the positronium energy fits the results very well and leads to a scattering length ${a}^{(\ensuremath{-})}\ensuremath{\simeq}2.36{a}_{0}$, compared with the static result ${a}^{(\ensuremath{-})}=2.476{a}_{0}$ of Hara and Fraser. The SSS-wave total and ortho-para conversion cross sections are calculated by making use of both 1S^{1}S1S and 3S^{3}S3S results. In the 3S^{3}S3S case, we see no indication of any resonances below the excitation threshold at 5.1 eV.
Using the convergent close-coupling theory we study the threshold behavior of cross sections for positronium (Ps) of energy EEE scattering on antiprotons. In the case of Ps(1s\mathrm{Ps}(1sPs(1s) elastic scattering, simple power laws are observed for all partial waves studied. The partial-wave summed cross section is nearly constant, and dominates the antihydrogen formation cross section at all considered energies, even though the latter is exothermic and behaves as 1/E1/21/{E}^{1/2}1/E1/2. For Ps(2s\mathrm{Ps}(2sPs(2s), oscillations spanning orders of magnitude on top of the 1/E1/E1/E behavior are found in the elastic and quasielastic cross sections. The antihydrogen formation is influenced by dipole-supported resonances below the threshold of inelastic processes. Resonance energies form a geometric progression relative to the threshold. The exothermic antihydrogen formation cross sections behave as 1/E1/E1/E at low energies, but are oscillation free. We demonstrate that all these rich features are reproduced by the threshold theory developed by Gailitis [J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Phys. 15, 3423 (1982)].
We have investigated the elastic scattering of positronium atoms by hydrogen atoms below the excitation threshold at 5.1 eV, limiting the investigation to the spin-zero (singlet) state of the two electrons. Nonresonant SSS-wave phase shifts have been obtained from normalizable trial functions by extracting the center-of-mass wave function and examining its spatial behavior. An effective-range expansion is fitted to the phase shifts and the previously obtained positronium-hydride bound-state energy to yield a scattering length $a\ensuremath{\cong}5.3{a}_{0}$ compared with Fraser's corrected exchange result, a=7.28a0a=7.28{a}_{0}a=7.28a0​ (a0{a}_{0}a0​ is the Bohr radius). The stabilization method suggests that a resonance occurs at a scattering energy of 4.5 eV, about 0.6 eV below the excitation threshold. Using the complex rotation method, we have obtained evidence confirming the existence of the resonance and an estimate of its width of about 6 \ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{} ${10}^{\ensuremath{-}2}$ eV.