Abstract
Producing positronium (Ps) in the metastable state is of interest for various applications in fundamental physics. We report here on an experiment in which Ps atoms are produced in this long-lived state by spontaneous radiative decay of Ps excited to the level manifold. The Ps cloud excitation is obtained with a UV laser pulse in an experimental vacuum chamber in presence of guiding magnetic field of and an average electric field of . The evidence of the state production is obtained to the level of statistical significance using a novel analysis technique of the single-shot positronium annihilation lifetime spectra. The dynamic of the Ps population on the involved levels has been studied with a rate equation model.
4 More- Received 20 February 2018
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.98.013402
Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.
Published by the American Physical Society