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Positronium
Bound state of an electron and positron / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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This article is about the exotic atom. For the hydrogen isotope, see Isotopes of hydrogen § Hydrogen-1 (protium).
Positronium (Ps) is a system consisting of an electron and its anti-particle, a positron, bound together into an exotic atom, specifically an onium. Unlike hydrogen, the system has no protons. The system is unstable: the two particles annihilate each other to predominantly produce two or three gamma-rays, depending on the relative spin states. The energy levels of the two particles are similar to that of the hydrogen atom (which is a bound state of a proton and an electron). However, because of the reduced mass, the frequencies of the spectral lines are less than half of those for the corresponding hydrogen lines.
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