Michel Jullian wrote.
>
>Tsss, watching TV too much and too close ;)
>
> Nice experiment, even though I haven't understood what you were looking for.
>
Valid question Michel.
About a year ago I proposed that Positronium formed by momentary coupling of
a positron and electron rather than annihilating into a pair of 0.51 MeV photons might couple
to an electron from any atom and form a stable "Triad" (e- e+ e-) aka Electronium or (*e-)
giving off 3 photons of about 170 KeV each (which might be mistaken for 3-photon
positron-electron annihilation and end as a stable/elusive particle with a mass about
2+ that of "ordinary" electrons.
Since then I found that there is a lot going on in the area of research into the recently observed
Positronium Ion Ps- giving pause for one to wonder if the proposed stable (*e-) is being missed.
This experiment at the Max Planck Institute shows a setup for creating Ps- and
use of germanium detector for looking at annihilation photons but doesn't specify
their energy. Could the observed three-photon electron-positron annihilation actually
be formation (the mass defect binding energy) of (*e-)?
If so electronium could be ubiquitous in nature, albeit in small numbers wrt electrons
If it exists it could be a major player in the quest for producing useful energy from Hot or Cold Fusion..
Fred
"The object of our studies is one of these simple systems: the Positronium negative ion. This exotic entity is a bound state of a positron and two electrons. It is similar to the negative ion of hydrogen (H-). In fact, it is the most simple three body problem imaginable. Its constituents are pointlike particles (at least to the best of our knowledge) and there are no pertubations due to strong interactions to be considered. There has been quite a lot of theoretical activity around Ps- but there is not much known experimentally. Only one experiment can be found in the literature: A.P. Mills observed the Positronium negative ion experimentally and made a first lifetime measurement. With an error of about 4% it is not sufficiently precise to allow for a test a QED effects. A new measurement of the lifetime with improved precision is the first objective of this project."
"To measure the spectra a Germanium detector at the temperature of liquid nitrogen detects the ? radiation from the decays of the positronium and positronium ion."
