Physical Review B
PIMC Simulation of Ps Annihilation: From Micro to Mesopores
Amy L. R. Bug, Philip A. Sterne
Abstract
Path Integral Monte Carlo (PIMC) can reproduce the results of simple analytical calculations in which a single quantum particle is used to represent positronium within an idealized, spherical pore. Our calculations improve on this approach by explicitly treating the positronium as a two-particle e{sup -}, e{sup +} system interacting via the Coulomb interaction. We study the lifetime and the internal contact density, {kappa}, which controls the self-annihilation behavior, for positronium in model spherical pores, as a function of temperature and pore size. We compare the results with both PIMC and analytical calculations for a single-particle model.