Skip to main content
U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

MUON CAPTURE IN HELIUM-3. Thesis

Thesis/Dissertation ·
OSTI ID:4126470
Negative muons were stopped in a He/sup 3/ gas scintillation counter, and the rate of the interaction mu /sup -/ + He/sup 3/ -- H/sup 3/ + n was measured, where the produced H/sup 3/ nucleus is in the ground state. The interaction was identified by the characteristic 1.9 Mev pulse produced in the He/ sup 3/ scintillant by the monoenergic recoil tritium nucleus. Decay electrons from the competing muon decay process were counted in a xenon gas scintillation counter that surrounded the cubical He/sup 3/ target on 5 sides. The efficiency of electron detection was measured directly. The counters were constructed almost entirely of materials with high atomic number, and muon interactions in the materials were distinguished by their characteristic short muon-disappearance mean lives. Contamination of the data by muons stopping in residual low-Z material was evaluated by replacing the He/sup 3/ in the target counter with xenon, so that the only counts exhibiting a long mean-life were due to that contamination. The capture rate was found from the ratio of the number of captures to the number of decays times the known decay rate. The result for the capture rate to the ground state is (gnd/c) = (1.48 plus or minus 0.29/0.27) x 10/sup 3/ sec/sup -1/. This result is in agreement with theoretical calculations based on the universality of the V-A Fermi interaction and the validity of the Feynman-Gell-Mann conserved vector current hypothesis. (Dissertation Abstr., 24: No. 4, Oct. 1963)
Research Organization:
Originating Research Org. not identified
NSA Number:
NSA-18-004624
OSTI ID:
4126470
Country of Publication:
Country unknown/Code not available
Language:
English

Similar Records

MEASUREMENT OF THE RATE FOR $mu$$sup -$ + He$sup 3$ $Yields$ H$sup 3$ + $nu$
Technical Report · Mon Dec 31 23:00:00 EST 1962 · OSTI ID:4010441

MUON CAPTURE BY C$sup 12$ AND BETA DECAY OF B$sup 1$$sup 2$
Journal Article · Mon Dec 14 23:00:00 EST 1959 · Physical Review (U.S.) Superseded in part by Phys. Rev. A, Phys. Rev. B: Solid State, Phys. Rev. C, and Phys. Rev. D · OSTI ID:4190376

A CERENKOV STUDY OF BOUND MUON DECAY
Journal Article · Tue May 01 00:00:00 EDT 1962 · Dissertation Abstr. · OSTI ID:4823997