Collision-induced radiative quenching and other disintegration modes of the $2S$ state of muonic hydrogen and deuterium atoms

Abstract

The formation and various disintegration modes of $2s$ states for muonic hydrogen and deuterium atoms at kinetic energies both above and below the $2s-2p$ threshold are studied. The cross sections of the collision-induced radiative quenching, elastic scattering, and Coulomb deexcitation of $(\mu^- p)_{2s}$ and $(\mu^- d)_{2s}$ atoms in collisions with ordinary hydrogen and deuterium atoms at collision energies below the $2s-2p$ threshold are calculated in the framework of the close-coupling approach. The basis set includes all open and closed channels corresponding to exotic-atom states with principal quantum number $n$ from 1 up to 30. Results of these numerical quantum-mechanical calculations of cross sections are used as input data for detailed cascade calculations. The kinetics of atomic cascade for $\mu^- p$ and $\mu^-d$ atoms is studied in the wide range of the relative target densities, $\varphi = 10^{-8} -1$ applying the improved version of the cascade model. It is shown that the collision-induced radiative quenching gives a significant contribution to the total disintegration of the $2s$ state of muonic atoms at energies below the $2s-2p$ threshold. The initial population of the $2s$ state for both muonic hydrogen and deuterium atoms, absolute intensities and probabilities of the different disintegration modes as well as their lifetimes are calculated for the fractions with kinetic energies above and below the $2s-2p$ threshold. The obtained results are compared with the known experimental data.