Orientation dependence of relativistic-positron annihilation in single crystals

Abstract

An effect of the orientation dependence of the cross section for the single-photon annihilation of relativistic positrons with atomic electrons in a crystal is predicted. It is shown that the probability for the single-photon annihilation of a channeled positron in a crystal may be either suppressed in a crystal in relation to a homogeneous medium or, on the contrary, enhanced. The reason is that, depending on their incidence angle, the positrons may be either in the vicinity of ion planes of the crystal, where the electron density is higher, or far away from them, where the electron density is lower.