Positron Interactions with Matter: Current Status and Future Directions

Positron interactions with matter have attracted attention from the scientific community in the past 40 years, with differing prevalent focuses among specific areas. In atomic and molecular physics context a significant effort has been made to achieve more precise and reliable collision cross sections measurements in both the elastic and inelastic regimes, while the theoretical endeavor is still focused on the definition of a competent description of the elastic cross sections and to model inelastic processes, mainly positronium formation and the direct annihilation process at thermal energies. The advances within this research field has enabled some interesting applications, such as positron and electron track simulations within matter, more precise estimation of radiation doses in medical applications, structural analysis of materials based on the positron annihilation signal, detection and the characterization of interstellar matter also based on the positron annihilation signal. In this rich scenario for experimental, theoretical and applied studies, one should wonder what comes next. What are the questions that will drive the research in these areas in the next few years? What are the open problems that will attract new researchers to this field? Which new applications can potentially emerge in the near future? What refinements are feasible in positron spectroscopy experimental setups and which data they can produce in the near future? Which theoretical efforts are being made to refine known results and obtain new ones? This Frontiers Research Topic will reunite the perspectives of researchers in positron interactions with matter about these and other related questions, in an attempt to suggest some directions to drive positron interaction with matter studies in the next few years. Topic editors: Michael Charlton, Felipe Arretche, Eliton Popovicz Seidel, Wagner Tenfen, Aled Isaac Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/83916/positron-interactions-with-matter-current-status-and-future-directions