Stability of Matter-Antimatter Molecules

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the stability and binding energies of matter-antimatter molecules, identifying conditions under which they are stable and estimating their lifetimes, thus suggesting such molecules could be more common than previously thought.

Contribution

It introduces a simplified two-body approach to study matter-antimatter molecules and establishes a stability criterion based on constituent mass ratios, providing new insights into their formation.

Findings

Matter-antimatter molecules are stable if mass ratio > 4.

Binding energies and eigenstates are calculated for specific molecules.

Estimated annihilation lifetimes for molecules in s states.

Abstract

We examine the stability of matter-antimatter molecules by reducing the four-body problem into a simpler two-body problem with residual interactions. We find that matter-antimatter molecules with constituents (m1+, m2-, m2bar+, m1bar-) possess bound states if their constituent mass ratio m1/m2 is greater than about 4. This stability condition suggests that the binding of matter-antimatter molecules is a rather common phenomenon. We evaluate the binding energies and eigenstates of matter-antimatter molecules (mu+ e-)-(e+ mu-), (pi+ e-)-(e+ pi-), (K+ e-)-(e+ K-), (p e-)-(e+ pbar), (p mu-)-(mu+ pbar), and (K+ mu-)-(mu+ K-), which satisfy the stability condition. We estimate the molecular annihilation lifetimes in their s states.