Very low-energy hydrogen-antihydrogen scattering

In view of current interest in the trapping of antihydrogen ((H) over bar) atoms at very low temperatures, we have carried out a calculation of s-wave hydrogen-antihydrogen scattering at very low energies, using the Kohn variational method, taking into account rearrangement scattering into the three channels that contain positronium in its ground state and lie closest to threshold. We find that our values for the elastic cross section are in good agreement with the the values obtained by Jonsell et al. [2001 Phys. Rev. A 64 052712] using a distorted wave approximation. However, our values for the total rearrangement cross section are much larger than their values and we predict that cooling of (H) over bar by cold H would be considerably less efficient than was found to be the case by Jonsell et al..