Muon Capture and Muon Lifetime

Abstract

We survey a new generation of precision muon lifetime experiments. The goal of the MuCap experiment is a determination of the rate for muon capture on the free proton to 1 percent, from which the induced pseudoscalar form factor $g_P$ of the nucleon can be derived with 7 percent precision. A measurement of the related $\mu$d capture process with similar precision would provide unique information on the axial current in the two nucleon system, relevant for fundamental neutrino reactions on deuterium. The MuLan experiment aims to measure the positive muon lifetime with 20 fold improved precision compared to present knowledge in order to determine the Fermi Coupling Constant $G_F$ to better than 1 ppm.

11 pages, 6 figues, invited talk at EXA 2002, International Workshop on Exotic Atoms - Future Perspectives, Vienna, Austria, 2002. Update 4/26/2003 corrects formatting problem in Fig.5

References in corpus (2)

• Parameter-free effective field theory calculation for the solar proton-fusion and hep processes
• Induced pseudoscalar coupling of the proton weak interaction

Cited by in corpus (2)

• Muon Capture in Deuterium
• Astrophysical Neutrino Reactions and Muon Capture in Deuterium