Seeking celestial positronium with an OH-suppressed diffraction-limited spectrograph

Abstract

Celestially, positronium (Ps) has been observed only through gamma-ray emission produced by its annihilation. However, in its triplet state, a Ps atom has a mean lifetime long enough for electronic transitions to occur between quantum states. This produces a recombination spectrum observable in principle at near IR wavelengths, where angular resolution greatly exceeding that of the gamma-ray observations is possible. However, the background in the near IR is dominated by extremely bright atmospheric hydroxyl (OH) emission lines. In this paper, we present the design of a diffraction-limited spectroscopic system using novel photonic components—a photonic lantern, OH fiber Bragg grating filters, and a photonic TIGER 2D pseudo-slit—to observe the Ps Balmer alpha line at 1.3122 µm for the first time, to our knowledge.