P̄p annihilation cross section at very low energy

Abstract

The p̄p total annihilation cross section has been measured, with the Obelix apparatus at LEAR, at ten values of the antiproton incident momentum between 43 and 175 MeV/ c. The values of the cross section show that the well known 1 p behaviour of the annihilation cross section is drastically modified at very low momenta, which demonstrates the important role of the Coulomb force in low energy p̄p interaction. Moreover, they do not present any explicit resonant behaviour. Finally, when compared to potential model calculations, the data suggest that the percentage of P-wave in p̄p interaction around 50 MeV/ c antiproton incident momentum is less than 5%.