Speaker
Description
It has been known for many years that an electron and its antiparticle, the positron, may together form a metastable hydrogen-like atom, known as positronium or Ps. In 1946, Wheeler speculated that two Ps atoms may combine to form the positronium molecule (Ps$_2$) stable with respect to auto-dissociation. In 2007, the existence of Ps$_2$ was confirmed experimentally by David Cassidy and? Allen Mills at the University of California.
I will present a determination of the radiation-less and two photon decay rates of Ps$_2$. We employ a simple technique to compute the amplitudes and write the products of spinors in terms of gamma matrices, which reduces the computational time and provides more insights into the physics of a reaction. After testing the method with the well known problem of para-positronium (p-Ps) and positronium ion (Ps$^{-1}$), I will present decay rate calculation of Ps$_2\to e^-e^+$ and Ps$_2\to \gamma \gamma$, and demonstrate that the previously published results are incorrect.
| Your Email | mmubashe@ualberta.ca |
|---|---|
| Supervisor | Andrzej Czarnecki |
| Supervisor Email | andrzejc@ualberta.ca |
| Funding Agency | Supervisor |
