Light pionic atoms – perspectives for precision experiments

Abstract

During the last decades high-precision spectroscopy of exotic-atom X-rays profited in particular in the case of pions from the increasing number of stopped particles provided by the cyclotron trap at the accelerator facility of the Paul-Scherrer-Institut (PSI) together with modern detector concepts like charge-coupled devices (CCDs) and crystal spectrometers. Presently, priority is given to the study of the strong-interaction effects in the most elementary system-pionic hydrogen. However, the systems with two or more nucleons are as fundamental for the development of a theoretical description of hadronic matter. Furthermore, the de-excitation of exotic atoms involves a variety of atomic processes, which become accessible in detail due to the high resolution achievable with crystal spectrometers, e. g., parallel transitions, line splittings, broadenings and intensity distributions. In addition, first successful attempts for a microscopic description of the atomic cascade are available now, which should be subject to stringent tests both for atoms and molecules.