Boyle, G. J., Muccignat, D. L., Machacek, J. R., and McEachran, R. P. (2025) The influence of positron-Xe elastic scattering cross section variation on 〈Zeff〉 relaxation. Journal of Physics B: Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 58 (23). 235201.

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Abstract

In this study, we investigated the sensitivity of the positron annihilation rate during thermalization to variations in the elastic scattering phase shifts and the corresponding cross sections. We employed a Boltzmann equation solver to simulate positron thermalization and calculate the average effective electron number, 〈Z<inf>eff</inf>〉, which is proportional to the annihilation rate. Our analysis demonstrates that variations in phase shifts, even within experimentally reasonable error margins, lead to large uncertainties in the 〈Z<inf>eff</inf>〉 relaxation profiles. The implication is that improving the accuracy of scattering cross section measurements does not substantially reduce uncertainties in annihilation rates, but conversely, experimental measurements of 〈Z<inf>eff</inf>〉 can constrain the range of consistent positron scattering cross sections.

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