Positronium hydride decay into proton, electron, and one or zero photons

TL;DR

This paper accurately calculates the decay rates of positronium hydride into specific channels, correcting previous overestimations and confirming key static properties using a variational Gaussian basis approach.

Contribution

It provides precise decay rate calculations for PsH into proton, electron, and photons, and clarifies reasons for prior overestimations, confirming static properties with a variational method.

Findings

Decay rates for PsH channels are significantly lower than previous estimates.

Confirmed static properties of PsH including energy and inter-particle distances.

Identified physics reasons behind previous overestimations.

Abstract

Decay rates of the positronium hydride PsH, a bound state of a proton, a positron, and two electrons, are determined for two rare channels, PsH $\to p^+ e^- \gamma$ and PsH $\to p^+ e^-$. Previous studies overestimated these rates by factors of about 2 and 700, respectively. We explain the physics underlying these wrong predictions. We confirm a range of static PsH properties, including the non-relativistic ground state energy, expectation values of inter-particle distances and their powers, and the three and four particle coalescence probabilities, using a variational method in the Gaussian basis.