Slow positrons in rare gases

Abstract

Abstract The behaviour of positrons below the inelastic collision threshold in rare gases can usually be completely accounted for in terms of the annihilation and elastic scattering cross sections for collisions between a positron and a single gas atom. Determining these cross sections has been the subject of many theoretical and experimental investigations. However the basic premise that the positron interacts with the gas atoms, one at a time, has been recently questioned by the yet unexplained results of some low-temperature experiments. This article discusses the annihilation and elastic scattering cross sections as they relate to the conventional picture of positrons in He, Ne, Ar, Kr and Xe gas; as well as the possibility of bound states for positrons in the gases at low temperatures.