Structure of double pionic atoms

Abstract

Abstract We study theoretically the structure of double pionic atoms, in which two negatively charged pions ($\pi^-$) are bound in the atomic orbits. The double pionic atom is considered to be an interesting system from the point of view of the multi-bosonic systems. In addition, it could be possible to deduce valuable information on the isospin $I = 2$$\pi\pi$ interaction and the pion–nucleus strong interaction. In this paper, we take into account the $\pi\pi$ strong and electromagnetic interactions, and evaluate the effects on the binding energies by perturbation theory for the double pionic atoms in heavy nuclei. We investigate several combinations of two pionic states and find that the order of magnitude of the energy shifts due to the $\pi\pi$ interaction is around 10 keV for the strong interaction and around 100 keV for the electromagnetic interaction for the ground states.