Positronium (Ps), a hydrogen-like atom composed of an electron and its antimatter partner, the positron, is formed in considerable quantities whenever positrons interact with matter. It has unexpectedly been found to scatter from a wide variety of atoms and molecules in a way very similar to that of a bare electron moving at the same velocity, despite Ps being neutral and twice the mass.

The absolute cross section for the fragmentation of positronium in collision with He atoms has been measured. The results are compared with available theories. The longitudinal energy distributions of positrons resulting from fragmentation have also been determined and are found to display a peak situated just below half the residual energy. This is suggestive of the occurrence of "electron loss to the continuum" in which the two residual charged particles lie in a low relative-velocity Coulomb-continuum state.

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The total cross sections for positron and positronium scattering from H2O molecules have been measured for incident energies between 7 and 417 eV, and 10 and 100 eV, respectively. The experimental system has been characterized with respect to its angular acceptance of both scattered positrons and positronium in order to correct the data for forward-scattering errors once differential cross sections become available. The present data are compared with previous results for electron and positron total cross sections.

The first absolute experimental determinations of the differential cross-sections for the formation of ground-state positronium are presented for He, Ar, H2 and CO2 near 0 ○ . Results are compared with available theories. The ratio of the differential and integrated cross-sections for the targets exposes the higher propensity for forward-emission of positronium formed from He and H2.PACS numbers: 36.10. Dr, 34.80.Bm, 34.80.Uv The formation of positronium (Ps, the bound state of an electron and a positron) is an important channel in the scattering of positrons from atoms and molecules e.g. [1][2][3], accounting for up to 50% of the total cross-section, with experimental and theoretical investigations of its integrated formation cross-sections available for a wide range of atoms and simple molecules, e.g. [3][4][5]. Recent experimental studies also include its formation in an excited state [6] or accompanied by ionic excitation [7]. However, whilst theoretical predictions for the differential Ps formation cross-section ( dQPs dΩ ) are available for atomic [8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16] and molecular [17,18] hydrogen, the noble gases [9,16,[19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28][29] Details of the experimental arrangement employed at UCL for producing a beam of Ps atoms, together with a review of recent advances, may be found in [41]. In brief, the Ps beam is produced by charge-exchange of positrons (e + ) with a target gas (A), i.e. e + + A → Ps + A + , and detected downstream by a channel-electronmultiplier (CEM or CEMA) in coincidence with one or more γ-ray detectors (e.g. CsI or NaI) where it has been found to be composed predominantly of groundstate atoms [42,43].Depending on the relative spin orientation of its constituents, ground-state Ps may be formed in an ortho-( 3 S 1 ) or para-( 1 S 0 ) state. The two are characterized by lifetimes differing by three orders of magnitude (142 ns and 125 ps, respectively) and different annihilation modes (dominantly 3-γ and 2-γ, respectively). Only ortho-Ps reaches the detection region.In order to determine dQPs dΩ (a measure of the probability that Ps is emitted within a solid angle dΩ = 2πsinθdθ), we have measured the number of Ps atoms (ε where τ Ps is the lifetime of ortho-Ps, t its flight-time to the detector and ǫ Ps the 'true' Ps beam production efficiency. In Eq.(1), ǫ m Ps may be seen to depend on the (energy-dependent) ratio of the positron to positronium detection efficiencies R d also determined by our group [38][39][40].By studying the variation of ǫ Ps with gas pressure, optimum beam operating conditions may be determined for a given target and Ps energy [39,40,44,45]. An example is shown in Figure 1 for production of 20 eV Ps from CO 2 . Here ǫ Ps may be seen to increase and then decrease with increasing pressure. This variation may be expressed as: