An energy-tunable positronium beam produced via photodetachment of positronium negative ions and its applications

Positronium is a bound state of one electron and one positron. It can be seen as the lightest neutral “atom”. It can also be seen as a neutralized electron or a neutralized positron. Since positronium is electrically neutral, special techniques are required to generate a variable energy beam of positronium. In recent years, it has become possible to efficiently generate positronium negative ions in which another electron is bound to positronium. It is possible to generate an energy-tunable positronium beam by accelerating positronium negative ions with an electric field and irradiating them with laser light to photodetach one electron. Generation of such a positronium beam has actually been realized, and applied research has begun. Here, we describe the energy-variable positronium beam generation, its applied research including the observation of the motion-induced resonance of positronium and the first measurement of the binding energy of positronium to one electron.