Muon Capture on the Deuteron -- The MuSun Experiment

Abstract

We propose to measure the rate \Rd\ for muon capture on the deuteron to better than 1.5% precision. This process is the simplest weak interaction process on a nucleus that can both be calculated and measured to a high degree of precision. The measurement will provide a benchmark result, far more precise than any current experimental information on weak interaction processes in the two-nucleon system. Moreover, it can impact our understanding of fundamental reactions of astrophysical interest, like solar pp fusion and the $\nu +d$ reactions observed by the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory. Recent effective field theory calculations have demonstrated, that all these reactions are related by one axial two-body current term, parameterized by a single low-energy constant. Muon capture on the deuteron is a clean and accurate way to determine this constant. Once it is known, the above mentioned astrophysical, as well as other important two-nucleon reactions, will be determined in a model independent way at the same precision as the measured muon capture reaction.

Proposal for PSI Experiment R-08-01, submitted February 8, 2008

References in corpus (8)

• Neutron lifetime measurements using gravitationally trapped ultracold neutrons
• Measurement of the Rate of Muon Capture in Hydrogen Gas and Determination of the Proton's Pseudoscalar Coupling $g_P$
• How low-energy weak reactions can constrain three-nucleon forces and the neutron-neutron scattering length
• Electroweak Radiative Corrections to Muon Capture
• A Circulating Hydrogen Ultra-High Purification System for the MuCap Experiment
• Model dependence of the neutrino-deuteron disintegration cross sections at low energies
• Chiral O(Q^4) two-body operators for s-wave pion photoproduction on the NN system
• Constraints on proton-proton fusion from helioseismology

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Discovering the New Standard Model: Fundamental Symmetries and Neutrinos