Annihilation of Low Energy Antiprotons in Hydrogen

Abstract

The cross sections for annihilation of antiprotons in hydrogen are very important for designing the High‐Performance Antiproton Trap (HiPAT). When antiprotons are trapped they undergo atomic reactions with background gases which remove them from the trap. First, antiprotons are captured into highly excited bound states by ejecting the bound electrons, then they are radiationally deexcited and, finally, they annihilate by nuclear interaction. An understanding of these process require reliable cross sections for low‐energy collisions of antiprotons with atoms. We have developed a theoretical technique for accurate calculations of these cross sections.