Nuclei containing an antinucleon

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
We have investigated the possibility that a nucleus containing a single antinucleon (N¯) may exhibit some relatively long-lived excited states. Using N¯ optical potentials consistent with the available data on p¯-atom level shifts and/or low energy p¯-nucleus scattering, and calculating the complex eigenvalues of the Schrödinger equation, we find that the annihilation widths of strongly bound (non-Coulomb) N¯ states are generally large, as expected, of order Γ≊50–100 MeV. Some possible exceptions to this may occur when the N¯ is bound to a light nuclear core which is not spin and isospin saturated. We obtain cross section estimates for the formation of N¯ nuclei via the (p¯,p) and (p¯,n) reactions on nuclear targets with A=3, 4, and 16.