Improved Measurement of the Positive Muon Lifetime and Determination of the Fermi Constant

Abstract

The mean life of the positive muon has been measured to a precision of 11 ppm using a low-energy, pulsed muon beam stopped in a ferromagnetic target, which was surrounded by a scintillator detector array. The result, tau_mu = 2.197013(24) us, is in excellent agreement with the previous world average. The new world average tau_mu = 2.197019(21) us determines the Fermi constant G_F = 1.166371(6) x 10^-5 GeV^-2 (5 ppm). Additionally, the precision measurement of the positive muon lifetime is needed to determine the nucleon pseudoscalar coupling g_P.

As published version (PRL, July 2007)

References in corpus (1)

• Measurement of the Rate of Muon Capture in Hydrogen Gas and Determination of the Proton's Pseudoscalar Coupling $g_P$

Cited by in corpus (13)

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• Determination of the Axial-Vector Weak Coupling Constant with Ultracold Neutrons
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• Tau Physics: Theory Overview
• The Standard Model of Electroweak Interactions
• Limits on the Time Variation of the Fermi Constant G_F Based on Type Ia Supernova Observations
• Muon Physics: A Pillar of the Standard Model
• Data acquisition system for the MuLan muon lifetime experiment
• Muon Capture on the Proton and Deuteron
• Assisted neutrino pair production in combined external fields
• Importance of the X-ray edge singularity for the detection of relic neutrinos in the PTOLEMY project