Antiproton cross-field diffusion in antihydrogen production experiments due to anisotropic binary interactions

Abstract

Collisional processes in electrostatic ion storage rings and reflecting-beam-type electrostatic ion traps can be associated with anisotropic binary interactions, because shielding of the Coulomb interactions may not take place in one or more dimensions. Collisional scattering theory has recently been developed for describing the velocity–space scattering processes in such systems [J.R. Correa, Y. Chang, C.A. Ordonez, Phys. Plasmas 12 (2005) 084505]. The theory is extended to enable the effect of a magnetic field to be included. The theory is intended to be applicable, for example, to antiproton scattering within nested Penning traps that are used to produce antihydrogen [M. Amoretti et al., Nature 419 (2002) 456; G. Gabrielse et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 89 (2002) 213401]. The theory is applied for considering the cross-magnetic-field diffusion of the antiprotons.