Three-particle recombination at low temperature: a QED approach

A theoretical study of the three-body recombination of proton and electron in presence of a spectator electron with electronic beam at near-zero tempe rature is presented using field theory and invariant Lorentz gauge. Contrib utions from the Feynman diagrams of different orders give an insight into t he physics of the phenomena. Recombination rate coefficient is obtained for low lying principal quantum number n = 1 to 10. At a fixed ion beam temper ature (300 K) recombination rate coefficient is found to increase in genera l with n, having a flat and a sharp peak at quantum states 3 and 5, respect ively. In absence of any other theoretical and experimental results for low temperature formation of H-atom by three-body recombination at low lying q uantum states, we have presented the theoretical results of Stevefelt and g roup for three-body recombination of deuteron with electron along with the present results. Three-body recombination of antihydrogen in antiproton-pos itron plasma is expected to yield similar result as that for three-body rec ombination of hydrogen formation in proton-electron plasma. The necessity f or experimental investigation of low temperature three-body recombination a t low quantum states is stressed.