Bound Deuteron-Antideuteron System (Deuteronium): Leading Radiative and Internal-Structure Corrections to Bound-State Energies

TL;DR

This paper calculates the energy levels of deuteronium, a bound state of deuteron and antideuteron, including leading quantum electrodynamic and internal-structure corrections, with implications for high-precision spectroscopy.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed evaluation of higher-order QED and internal-structure corrections for deuteronium energy levels, especially for states with nonzero angular momentum.

Findings

Energy corrections of orders alpha^3 m_d and alpha^4 m_d calculated.

Internal-structure effects like hadronic vacuum polarization evaluated.

Transitions are accessible by standard laser spectroscopy.

Abstract

We evaluate the energy levels of the deuteronium bound system, which consists of a deuteron and an antideuteron, with a special emphasis on states with nonvanishing orbital angular momenta. The excited atomic bound states of deuteronium constitute probes for the understanding of higher-order quantum electrodynamic corrections for spin-1 particles in a bound system where the typical field strength of the binding Coulomb field (at a distance of the generalized Bohr radius) exceeds Schwinger's critical field strength. For states with nonvanishing angular momenta, effects due to the internal structure of the deuteron and virtual annihilation contributions are highly suppressed. Relevant transitions are found to be in a frequency range accessible by standard laser spectroscopic techniques. We evaluate the leading and next-to-leading energy corrections of orders alpha^3 m_d and alpha^4 m_d , where alpha is the fine-structure constant and m_d is the deuteron mass, and also investigate internal-structure corrections: hadronic vacuum polarization, finite-size effects, and strong-interaction corrections.