Builds an anti-nucleus composed of anti-proton and anti-neutron

[JustinLevy]

Therefore, if one builds an anti-nucleus composed of anti-proton and anti-neutron, and puts it into orbit around a regular nucleus, one sould obtain some kind of stable "Nucleitronium"

I thought that was a neat idea. However, the mass is greater and thus the equivalent "bohr radius" would be much smaller. Maybe the two effects cancel (or maybe this decays even faster than positronium). I'm not sure how to calculate the decay rate since the particles are composite, have color charge, and is more energic with more decay products possible.

I'm curious now. Anyone know which would decay faster? Is there some kind of shortcut / handwavy back of the envelope method we can use here?

 

[Vanadium 50]

The Bohr radius of protonium is ~10^-3 of hydrogen, or about 100 proton radii. I'd start with the wavefunction overlap, which is going to tell you that the antiproton spends ~1% of its time inside the proton, so you get something like 100 orbits before decay. Each orbit will take ~(2pi)r/c time, or maybe 10^-21 s. So I would guess the ballpark is 10^-19 seconds.

 

[sir-pinski]

Thank you for sharing this interesting idea. However, it is important to note that anti-nuclei are extremely unstable and have a very short lifetime due to the strong nuclear force. In fact, it is currently impossible to create and observe anti-nuclei in a laboratory setting. So while the concept of "nucleitronium" is intriguing, it is currently just a theoretical idea. As for calculating the decay rate, it would require a thorough understanding of the strong nuclear force and the interactions between anti-particles. So until we have a better understanding of these fundamental forces, it is difficult to predict the decay rate of an anti-nucleus.