Slow positrons in gases

MAR 01, 1976

While they share many of the properties of negative electrons, positrons exhibit other phenomena—such as annihilation or positronium formation in collisions with atoms or molecules—that are all their own.

DOI: 10.1063/1.3023368

Sir Harrie Massey

The study of the behavior of slow positrons in gases has recently become a very lively field. New fast counting techniques are making it possible to enlarge much further the base already established in earlier work, as well as bringing into practical possibility measurements that previously seemed unattainable. (Typical of the recent experimental systems is the apparatus shown in the photograph, figure 1, and diagrammatically in figure 2.) For collisions with helium atoms at energies below the positronium formation threshold the position appears very well established, and the prospect is now opened for interpreting, in more detail, positron collisions with more complex systems.

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More about the authors

Sir Harrie Massey, Royal Society.