Primary populations in mesonic hydrogen atoms

Abstract

Cross sections for the formation of mesonic hydrogen have been calculated in the Born approximation with the complete perturbation operator and its dipole part. The dependence of the cross section on the initial meson energy and final state quantum number has been studied. Primary populations of mesonic atom levels have been calculated taking the competition between the moderation and the atomic capture of mesons into account. The population distribution over n extends deep into the range of large n. The Cnl distributions have maxima at intermediate values of l=l0 (dependent upon the meson mass) and fall off abruptly when l>l0. The primary alignment of the angular momentum of the mesonic atom is close to the limiting value corresponding to the zero-order projection of the angular momentum.