arXiv · 2512.23023
Total decay rate of a muon bound to a light nucleus
Abstract
We revisit the total decay rate of a muon being in the ground state of a Coulomb potential with atomic charge numbers $4\leq Z \leq 9$. The discrepancy between the perturbative $(\alpha Z)^2$ result of [Phys. Rev. \textbf{119}, 365 (1960)] and the fully relativistic partial-wave calculation of [At. Data Nucl. Data Tables \textbf{54}, 165 (1993)] for oxygen ($Z=8$) is shown to originate from insufficient convergence of the partial-wave series in the latter work. Our accurate relativistic calculations restore agreement with the perturbative $\alpha Z$~expansion and indicate a negative sign for the next-order $(\alpha Z)^3$ correction.
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Andrzej Czarnecki, A. O. Davydov, M. Y. Kaygorodov. 2025-12-28. Total decay rate of a muon bound to a light nucleus. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23023
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