Meson-baryon dynamics in the nucleon-antinucleon system. I. The nucleon-antinucleon interaction

A model for the nucleon-antinucleon interaction is presented, which is based on meson-baryon dynamics. The elastic part is the G-parity transform of the Bonn NN potential; annihilation is accounted for by microscopic baryon-exchange processes with two-meson intermediate states involving π, ρ, σ, ω, δ, K, and ${\mathit{K}}^{\mathrm{*}}$. Results for cross sections and polarization data are compared with a phenomenological treatment of annihilation based on a simple, state- and energy-independent optical potential.