Interaction of antiprotons with nuclei

TL;DR

This paper presents self-consistent relativistic mean-field calculations of antiproton-nucleus bound states, analyzing polarization effects, annihilation dynamics, and optical potentials based on recent scattering data.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive model combining RMF calculations with updated scattering amplitudes to study antiproton interactions with nuclei, including polarization and annihilation effects.

Findings

Significant nuclear core polarization caused by antiprotons.

Energy-dependent optical potentials influence bound state properties.

Self-consistent treatment of annihilation reduces available energy for decay products.

Abstract

We report on self-consistent calculations of $\bar{p}$ quasi-bound states in selected nuclei performed within the relativistic mean-field (RMF) model employing $\bar{p}$ coupling constants tuned to reproduce $\bar{p}$-atom data. We confirmed considerable polarization of the nuclear core induced by the antiproton. The $\bar{p}$ annihilation was treated dynamically, taking into account the reduced phase space in the nuclear medium as well as the compressed nuclear density. The energy available for the annihilation products was evaluated self-consistently, considering additional energy shift due to particle momenta in the ${\bar p}$-nucleus system. Next, we constructed the $\bar{p}$-nucleus optical potential using scattering amplitudes related to the latest version of the Paris $\bar{N}N$ potential. We explored energy dependence of the potential and the implications for $\bar{p}$-nucleus quasi-bound states.