Coulomb deexcitation and nonresonant charge exchange of muonic hydrogen in mixtures of hydrogen isotopes

The process of inelastic collisions of excited muonic hydrogen has been considered in the framework of the asymptotic theory of nonadiabatic transitions. The Coulomb deexcitation and chargetransfer rates are calculated in the energy range 0.001–100 eV taking into account the electron-screening effect for excited states in the range n = 3–10 for various isotopic configurations. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Application of hyperspherical close-coupling method to antiproton collisions with muonic hydrogen

The cross sections for p^- + (Hμ^-)_1s (H = p, d, t) are calculated in the hyperspherical close-coupling method for collision energies below the (Hp^-)_n=4 threshold. The results show good convergence with respect to basis size. The formation cross section of (Hp^-)_n=2 is dominant and two orders of magnitude larger than that of (Hp^-)_n=1 below the (Hp^-)_n=3 threshold, while the (Hp^-)_n=3 formation cross-section exceeds that for (Hp^-)_n=2 formation above the (Hp^-)_n=3 threshold. Resonance parameters are also calculated below thresholds of (Hp^-)_n=2-4.     

The Coulomb capture of negative muons by hydrogen atoms in the non-adiabatic close-coupling approximation

We present some results obtained within the non-adiabatic close-coupling approximation for Coulomb capture during collisions of slow negative muons with hydrogen atoms. The calculations are performed in momentum-space and a statistical distribution analysis is used to obtain the final cross sections. The present model results are in harmony with existing calculations. We conclude that further calculations within the present approach are justified.     

Calculation of deexcitation and muon transfer rates in collisions of excited muonic atoms in hydrogen mixtures

The competition of the processes responsible for muonic hydrogen deexcitation and charge exchange is considered for various isotopic mixtures. The energy dependence as well as then-dependence of the process rates are analyzed in the framework of the WKB method. Electron screening is taken into account.     

Thermalization of muonic hydrogen in hydrogen targets

The thermalization of pµ atoms in protium and dµ atoms in deuterium is considered. Monte Carlo calculations are performed for gaseous (300 K) and solid (3 K) protium and deuterium targets. Complete sets of the total and differential cross sections for the scattering of pµ on protium targets and dµ on deuterium targets are used as an input to the Monte Carlo simulations. At 300 K, muonic atom scattering from single molecules of H₂ and D₂ is considered. In the case of solid hydrogen the correlation effects from all molecules of the sample are taken into account. In particular, the Bragg and phonon scattering cross sections are calculated. The spin states and average energy of the muonic atoms are shown as functions of time. It is shown that at energies below about 0.01 eV the solid-state effects influence strongly the calculated cross sections, and therefore the deceleration processes in the solids are much slower than in the gaseous targets. It is shown that the neutron spectrum due to ddµ formation and subsequent dd fusion is significantly affected by slow dµ thermalization in solid deuterium.     

Scattering of muonic hydrogen atoms

Our measurement compares the energy dependence of the scattering cross-sections of muonic deuterium and tritium on hydrogen molecules for collisions in the energy range 0.1–45 eV. A time-of-flight method was used to measure the scattering cross-section as a function of the muonic atom beam energy and shows clearly the Ramsauer–Townsend effect. The results are compared with theoretical calculations by using Monte Carlo simulations. The molecular pdμ and ptμ formation creates background processes. We measure the formation rates in solid hydrogen by detecting the 5.5 MeV (pdμ) and 19.8 MeV (ptμ) γ-rays emitted during the subsequent nuclear fusion processes. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Electron screening of the elastic scattering of muonic hydrogen on hydrogen

The electron screening effect is shown to be important in the calculation of scattering lengths for scattering of muonic hydrogen on an isotopic pure hydrogen target.     

Hyperfine ground-state structure of muonic hydrogen

Corrections of orders α⁵ and α⁶ to the superfine ground-state structure of the muonic hydrogen atom were calculated. The calculations took into account the effects of the structure of the nucleus on one-and two-loop Feynman amplitudes with the help of the electromagnetic form factors of the proton and the modification of the superfine part of the Breit potential caused by the electronic polarization of the vacuum. The total splitting of the 1S state is 182.725 meV; this value can be used as a reliable estimate in conducting a corresponding experiment with an accuracy of 30 ppm.     

Study of muonic hydrogen transport in TRIUMF experiment 742 by the Monte Carlo method

A technique of neutral muonic atom beams is proposed in the TRIUMF E742 experiment for measuring the scattering cross sections of muonic hydrogen isotopes in solid hydrogen. We present the results of Monte Carlo modeling of pµ and dµ atoms transport under the conditions of this experiment, taking into account the main physical as well as the geometrical aspects. The optimization of set-up parameters is performed in order to choose the most sensitive experimental conditions.     

Measurement of muonic X-ray intensities and Coulomb capture ratios in chlorides

Muonic X-ray spectra of 32 chlorides have been measured with Ge detectors. Coulomb capture ratios and Lyman X-ray intensities were determined, and correlations to target data established. The experimental capture ratios agree well with the values from a recently proposed formula.     

Laser spectroscopy of the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen

The muonic hydrogen atom in the 2s state provides the possibility of achieving high precision laser spectroscopy experiments from which a high precision value of the proton radius can be deduced. This will ultimately allow an increased precision in the test of QED in bound systems. Important progress has been made in recent years in the ability to stop muons in a low pressure gas target and in the understanding of the 2s-metastability in muonic hydrogen. As a consequence the 2s–2p laser spectroscopy experiment is now feasible and we present here the basic experimental concept considered by our collaboration. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Collisions for the quantum Coulomb Hamiltonian

We study the propagation of phase space singularities for the time dependent Schrödinger equation with potential having Coulomb-type singularities in space dimension equal tothree. We prove that the singularities (frequency set) of the solution are reflected by a Coulomb center exactly as in the classical problem, i.e. the frequency set follows theregularized trajectories of Classical Mechanics after a collision.     

Angular distributions of scattered excited muonic hydrogen atoms

Coulomb deexcitation differential cross sections of excited muonic hydrogen in collisions with the hydrogen atom are studied for the first time. In the fully quantum-mechanical close-coupling approach, both the differential cross sections for the nl → n′l′ transitions and l-averaged differential cross sections have been calculated for the initial exotic atom states with n = 2–6 at kinetic energies of E _cm = 0.01–15 eV and for scattering angles of ϑ_cm = 0°–180°. The vacuum polarization shifts of the ns states are taken into account. The differential cross sections of the elastic and Stark scattering obtained in the same approach are also presented. The main features of the calculated differential cross sections are discussed, and a strong anisotropy of Coulomb deexcitation cross sections is predicted. The text was submitted by the authors in English.     

Production of slow muonic hydrogen isotopes in vacuum

Muonic hydrogen isotopes (μ⁻ p, μ⁻ d, and μ⁻t) are simple quantum mechanical systems ideally suited for studies of numerous fundamental phenomena in electroweak and strong interactions as well as in applied areas such as muon chemistry or muon catalyzed fusion. Emission of muonic hydrogen isotopes into vacuum helps to overcome the limitations which are normally imposed on conventional investigations with gaseous and liquid targets. A proof of principle experiment for this new technique was performed at TRIUMF last year. Negative muons with 30 MeV/c momentum were stopped in a thin film of solid hydrogen and produced very low energy μ⁻d in vacuum. The distribution center of the normal velocity components of emitted μ⁻d atoms was measured to be ∼1 cm/μs. The yield of μ⁻d in vacuum is an increasing function of H₂ film thickness δ up to a value of δ≥1 mm.     

Collisional deexcitation of exotic hydrogen atoms in highly excited states

The atomic cascades in μ^- p and p atoms have been studied in detail using new results for the cross-sections of the scattering of highly excited exotic atoms from molecular hydrogen. The cascade calculations have been done with an updated version of the extended standard cascade model that computes the evolution in the kinetic energy from the beginning of the cascade. The resulting X-ray yields, kinetic energy distributions, and cascade times are compared with the experimental data.     

Experiment to measure the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen

The contribution of the root mean square (RMS) proton charge radius to the Lamb shift (2S–2P energy difference) in muonic hydrogen (μp) amounts to 2%. Apart from the uncertainty on this charge radius, theory predicts the Lamb shift with a precision on the ppm level. We are going to measure ΔE (2 S_1/2(F=1)–2 P_3/2(F=2)) in a laser resonance experiment to a precision of 30 ppm (i.e., 10% of the natural linewidth) and to deduce the RMS proton charge radius with 10⁻³ relative accuracy, 20 times more precise than presently known. The most important requirement for the feasibility of such an experiment, namely the availability of a sufficient amount of long lived metastable μp atoms in the 2S state, has been investigated in a recent experiment at PSI. Our analysis shows that in the order of one percent of all muons stopped in low pressure hydrogen gas form a long lived μp(2S) with a lifetime of the order of 1 μs. The technical realization of our experiment involves a new high intensity low energy muon beam, an efficient low energy muon entrance detector, a randomly triggered 3 stage laser system providing the 0.5 mJ, 7 ns laser pulses at 6.02 μm wavelength, and a combination of a xenon gas proportional scintillation chamber (GPSC) and a microstrip gas chamber (MSGC) with a CsI coated surface to detect the 2 keV X rays from theμp(2P → 1S) transition. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Observation of long-lived muonic hydrogen in the 2S state

The kinetic energy distribution of ground state muonic hydrogen atoms mup(1S) is determined from time-of-flight spectra measured at 4, 16, and 64 hPa H2 room-temperature gas. A 0.9 keV component is discovered and attributed to radiationless deexcitation of long-lived mu p(2S) atoms in collisions with H2 molecules. The analysis reveals a relative population of about 1%, and a pressure-dependent lifetime (e.g., 30.4 +21.4/-9.7 ns at 64 hPa) of the long-lived mu p(2S) population, equivalent to a 2S quench rate in mu p(2S)+H2 collisions of 4.4 +2.1/-1.8 x 10(11) s(-1) at liquid-hydrogen density.     

Charge exchange and Coulomb de-excitation of muonic atoms in low energy collisions

The muon transfer and Coulomb de-excitation rates at the collisions of (pμ) _n , (dμ) _n and (tμ) _n muonic atoms in excited states n = 3, 4, 5 with hydrogen isotopes p, d, t are calculated for all possible combinations of hydrogen isotopes. The advanced adiabatic approach (AAA) [1–3] is adapted and used to the specific case of muonic atom collisions. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Deceleration of muonic hydrogen atoms in solid hydrogens

Results of recent calculations of cross-sections for muonic hydrogen atom scattering in solid hydrogen isotope targets are presented. The coherent parts of these cross-sections, namely, the elastic Bragg scattering and phonon coherent scattering, are calculated accurately for the first time. A fine structure of Bragg peaks is obtained in the case of Bravais fcc structure of hydrogen targets frozen rapidly at 3 K. The one-phonon coherent cross-section is estimated using the Debye approximation. The calculated differential cross-sections are used for Monte Carlo simulations of muonic atom diffusion and slowing down in solid hydrogens. Also is calculated the energy-dependent rate of resonant ddμ molecule formation in 3 K solid deuterium quantum crystal, using the Debye model and Van Hove's formalism of the response function. This rate is very different from that obtained for the 3 K gas model. The influence of dμ atom slowing down on the average ddμ formation rate is considered. It is shown that very slow dμ deceleration below 10 meV is important for explanation of experimental results. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.