Formation of antihydrogen by the charge-transfer reaction.

Abstract

The cross sections for antihydrogen formation in the n=1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 levels from antiproton-positronium collisions are computed in the unitarized Born approximation (UBA). Twenty-seven physical states of antihydrogen (1s\ensuremath{\rightarrow}7h) and ten physical states (1s\ensuremath{\rightarrow}4f) of positronium are included in the UBA basis. The peak cross section for antihydrogen formation from excited positronium targets is much larger than that from a ground-state positronium target at low incident energies. The high-n antihydrogen levels make a significant contribution to the total antihydrogen formation cross section, especially for incident positronium atoms in the Ps(n=3) and Ps(n=4) levels.