Re: Binary stars

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@HEP.ANL.GOV>]

        Ludwik is not keeping QM in mind when he ask about p-pbar atoms
which have been around for decades.  See my detailed comments (below):

Adam was by constitution and proclivity a scientist; I was the same, and
we loved to call ourselves by that great name...Our first memorable
scientific discovery was the law that water and like fluids run downhill,
not up.
                          Mark Twain, <Extract from Eve's Autobiography>

On Sat, 18 Dec 1999, Ludwik Kowalski wrote:

> Take two stars of equal masses (say 10^32 kg), separate them
> by a chosen distance (d=10^13 m), give them appropriate
> initial positions (say r1=0.5*d*i, r2=-r1), and initial velocities
> (say v1=1.826*10^4*i,  v2=-v1). This makes a system in
> which each star traces a circle of r=d/2 about the C.M. The
> speed of the C.M. (in the absolute newtonian frame) is zero.
>
> The same should be true for a proton and antiproton. To have
> them circle about the common C.M. (and keep the angular
> momentum = 1 h_bar) the distance between the particles should
> be about 5.76*10^-15 m (58 F) while |v|=1.1*10^6 m/s. Was a
> proton-antiproton "binary star" ever observed experimentally?
> Should it be called a heavy neutron or a hydrogen "atom"?
> Ludwik Kowalski
        But angular momentum 1 is not a circular orbit it any
sense of the word.  The nearest we get to a circular orbit is
a very high n s-wave.
        A truly circular orbit that is confined within a narrow
range of radii would be made up of many, many quantum states.
        Capture of p-bars by protons has been studied in detail, both
theoretically and experimentally since the early sixties.  The
p-bar slows down due to interaction with electrons, and then makes
electromagnetic transitions to high Rydberg states.  It then
cascades, largely by E1 transitions down to low-n states from which
it annhilates with the proton.  Last time I looked, decades ago, the
capture time was mysteriously longer than expected from calculations.