Multiphoton effects in three-body recombination for antihydrogen formation

Abstract

Laser-assisted multiphoton cross-sections for the formation of antihydrogen () via the three-body recombination (TBR) process in a plasma of antiprotons ('s) and positrons (e+'s) are studied for the ground and excited states (n=2 level). Significantly large enhancement is noted due to multiphoton effects particularly in the ground-state formation cross-section at lower incident energies with respect to the field-free case. The multiphoton ground-state cross-section dominates almost throughout the energy range (except at extreme low energies) in contrast to the field-free case. The formation cross-sections are found to be much higher for unequal energies of the two incident (active and spectator) e+'s than for equal energies.