2011/09/11 by M. Mattes, Mattes, M., M. Sorg +1 · 1 citation
Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #FOS: Physical sciences #High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) #Muon and positron interactions and applications #Particle Accelerators and Free-Electron Lasers #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #hep-th
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1109.2331
153 pages, 9 figures and 6 tables
arxiv created 2011/09/11 · openalex publication_date 2011/09/11 · arxiv updated 2011/09/13 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The non-relativistic energy levels of para-positronium are calculated in the quadrupole approximation of the interaction potential. This approximation technique takes into account the anisotropy of the electrostatic electron-positron interaction in the lowest order. The states due to different values of the quantum number (lz) of angular momentum are found to be no longer degenerate as is the case in the conventional theory. The physical origin of this elimination of the conventional degeneracy may intuitively be attributed to the state-dependent inertial broadening of the rotating charge clouds; the corresponding anisotropic deformation (in the quadrupole approximation) lowers then the negative electrostatic interaction energy. The result of this influence of anisotropy is that the states with lz=0 adopt smaller binding energy whereas the states with maximal value of |lz| (for fixed principal quantum number n) have the largest binding energy within the angular momentum multiplet (-|lz,max| ≤ lz ≤ |lz,max|). This yields a certain kind of electric fine-structure splitting with the splitted RST levels being placed in a relatively narrow band around the (highly degenerated) conventional levels.