Positron-Impact Excitation of Hydrogen Atoms in Debye Plasmas

The positron-impact excitation of hydrogen atoms embedded in plasma environments is investigated using the close-coupling approximation from the low to intermediate energy region without including any positronium formation channel, and the excitation cross sections for 1s→2s, 1s→2p and 2s→2p processes are calculated in a wide Debye parameter range. The screening interactions, described by the Debye-Hückel model, decrease the coupling matrix elements, resulting in the reduction of the excitation cross sections from a few percent to one magnitude of ten. This will alter remarkably the spectroscopy of hydrogen in intensity and position, which should be considered in the simulation and diagnostics under some specific plasma conditions.