Antihydrogen formation from antiprotons in a pure positron plasma
- Department of Physics, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093 (United States)
This paper investigates the evolution in binding energy of antihydrogen atoms formed from stationary antiprotons located within a strongly magnetized positron plasma. Three-body recombination and a collisional cascade to deeper binding, limited by a kinetic bottleneck at a binding energy of 4T, dominate the initial antihydrogen formation process. A classical Monte-Carlo simulation is used to determine the collisional transition rate between atomic binding energies, using the drift approximation for initial conditions that allow it, and full dynamics for initial conditions resulting in chaotic motion. These transition rates are employed in determining mean energy-loss rates for an ensemble of atoms, as well as in a numerical solution of the master equation to find the rate at which atoms are formed over a range of binding energies. The highly excited atoms formed by this process separate into guiding-center drift atoms and chaotic atoms. The phase-space distributions of the atoms are investigated, along with their implications for magnetic confinement and radiative energy loss. Estimates of radiative energy loss indicate that radiation is unimportant for guiding-center atoms, but increases rapidly near the chaotic regime, taking over as the dominant energy-loss process for parameters typical of recent experiments. Furthermore, the fraction of low-magnetic field seekers is considerably larger than suggested by estimates of the magnetic moment based on guiding-center dynamics, due to effects associated with chaos.
- OSTI ID:
- 21272443
- Journal Information:
- Physics of Plasmas, Vol. 16, Issue 1; Other Information: DOI: 10.1063/1.3040168; (c) 2009 American Institute of Physics; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 1070-664X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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