Ionisation of noble gases by positron impact

The positron induced absolute single and double ionisation cross sections for the noble gases Ar, Kr and Xe have been determined in the energy region from below threshold to ∼1000 eV. With the use of an admixture of He to the target gas normalisation was performed by comparison to known single ionisation cross sections for He. Special interest has been taken in the energy gap of 6.8 eV below the direct double ionisation threshold energy, where only double ionisation with positronium formation is possible. This has been done to study the significance of double ionisation with Ps formation for the heavy noble gases. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.