A semiclassical description of protonium formation in antiproton collisions with molecular Hydrogen

In a departure from our previous work modeling antiproton capture on Helium, with it's relatively straightforward, fixed center target, extending the semiclassical approach to molecular hydrogen, i.e. a multi-center target with target masses identical to the projectile, requires that we revisit the fundamental nature of our model, including the momentum-dependent Heisenberg core used to stabilize electrons in the ground state. Happily, with minor modifications of the model parameters, it seems up to this new task. Here we discuss the main features of this revised model of a semiclassical molecular target, and use it to examine antiproton collisions with H-2; details of the collision process are presented, including the energy and angular momentum states of incident antiprotons which result in formation of pp, and the resulting distribution of protonium atomic states.