pD atoms in realistic potentials

Abstract

The pD atoms are studied in various realistic, popular NN potentials. The small energy shifts and decay widths of the atoms, which stem from the short-ranged strong interactions between the antiproton and deuteron, are evaluated in a well-established, accurate approach based on the Sturmian functions. The investigation reveals that none of the employed potentials, which reproduce the NN scattering data quite well, is able to reproduce the experimental data of the energy shifts of the 2p pD atomic states. The energy shifts of the 2p pD atomic states are very sensitive to the strong interactions, hence the investigation of the pD atoms is expected to provide a good platform for refining the NN interaction, especially at zero energy.