Furthermore, the hyperfine interaction between muon and electron spin makes of Mu an extremely sensitive magnetic probe, which can be used as a substitute for hydrogen in molecular materials, giving much detailed information on the structure, dynamics, and reactions of the samples under study. Positive muons can also yield to the formation of exotic atoms such as muonium (Mu) by picking an electron from the sample material. Muon polarization can thus be followed from measurements of the decay of positrons or electrons. The emitted positrons (or electrons) are preferentially directed following the muon spin, which in turn is highly polarized. Once implanted into the sample under study, positive (negative) muons decay yielding a positron (electron) and two neutrinos, after an average lifetime of 2.2 μs. Because of its sizable magnetic moment, that for a positive muon is about three times larger than that of the proton, muons can be used as very sensitive microscopic magnetometers.īoth positive and negative muons can be produced in relatively large quantities from the decay of pions and kaons resulting from proton interactions with targets at energies beyond several hundreds of megaelectron-volts. Such particles may be considered as heavy electrons since their rest mass comes to be some 207 times that of the electron or light protons because it is about one-ninth of the proton rest mass. Positive and negative muons are leptons with spin 1/2 carrying one elementary electric charge. Bermejo, Fernando Sordo, in Experimental Methods in the Physical Sciences, 2013 2.9.5 Use of Muon Beams for Condensed Matter and Fusion Research
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