Use of traps to study positron annihilation in astrophysically relevant media

We discuss possible experiments which can exploit recently-developed techniques to accumulate, store, and manipulate low-energy positrons to measure the parameters associated with positron annihilation radiation from media of astrophysical interest. Media discussed include collections of dust grains, partially ionized gases, He, H₂, and other molecular gases and gas mixtures, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules relevant to the interstellar medium.     

Dynamic model for vibronic excitation in low energy atom-molecule collisions

Product state distributions from low energy He⁺N₂ and N⁺₂He collisions are presented. These data, obtained from collision-produced emission spectra, show severe deviations from Franck-Condon behavior which cannot be solely the result of molecular distortion arising from electrodynamic effects. A model based on consideration of the short-range interaction between the collision partners is proposed.     

Metric subregularity and the proximal point method

We examine the linear convergence rates of variants of the proximal point method for finding zeros of maximal monotone operators. We begin by showing how metric subregularity is sufficient for local linear convergence to a zero of a maximal monotone operator. This result is then generalized to obtain convergence rates for the problem of finding a common zero of multiple monotone operators by considering randomized and averaged proximal methods.