Antiproton-deuteron atoms in models of realistic potentials

TL;DR

This study examines antiproton-deuteron atoms using realistic nucleon-antinucleon potentials, finding that current models cannot reproduce experimental energy shifts, highlighting the potential of these atoms to refine understanding of strong interactions.

Contribution

It evaluates the energy shifts and decay widths of antiproton-deuteron atoms with various realistic potentials using Sturmian functions, revealing limitations in current models.

Findings

None of the potentials reproduce experimental energy shifts.

Energy shifts are highly sensitive to strong interactions.

Antiproton-deuteron atoms can help refine nucleon-antinucleon interactions.

Abstract

The antiproton-deuteron atoms are studied in models of various realistic, popular nucleon-antinucleon potentials. The small energy shifts and decay widths of the atoms, which stem from the short-ranged strong interactions between the antiproton and deuteron, are evaluated in a well-established, accurate approach based on the Sturmian functions. The investigation reveals that none of the employed potentials, which reproduce the nucleon-antinucleon scattering data quite well, is able to reproduce the experimental data of the energy shifts of the 2p antiproton-deuteron atomic states. The energy shifts of the 2p antiproton-deuteron atomic states are very sensitive to the nucleon-antinucleon strong interactions, hence the investigation of the antiproton-deuteron atoms is expected to provide a good platform for refining the nucleon-antinucleon interaction, especially at zero energy.