Auger decay rates of antiprotonic helium

Auger decay rates of long-lived states of the antiprotonic helium ${}^{3,4}\mathrm{He}\mathrm{p}¯\mathrm{e}$ are calculated. The initial-state wave function is determined by using a variational approach combined with the solution of coupled differential equations. Special treatment is given to a few long-lived states, whose energy is close to that of the short-lived ones with an essentially different structure of the wave function. For these particular states, an admixture of the wave function of the near-lying short-lived states is taken into account.