Muon capture by 3He nuclei followed by proton and deuteron production

The paper describes an experiment aimed at studying muon capture by ³He nuclei in pure ³He and D₂+³He mixtures at various densities. Energy distributions of protons and deuterons produced via μ^-+³He→p+n+n+ν_μ and μ^-+³He→d+n+ν_μ are measured for the energy intervals 10 49 MeV and 13 31 MeV, respectively. Muon capture rates λ^p_cap(ΔE_p) and λ^d_cap(ΔE_d) are obtained using two different analysis methods. The least-squares methods give λ^p_cap=(36.7±1.2) s^-1, λ^d_cap=(21.3±1.6) s^-1. The Bayes theorem gives λ^p_cap=(36.8±0.8) s^-1, λ^d_cap=(21.9±0.6) s^-1. The experimental differential capture rates, dλ^p_cap(E_p)/dE_p and dλ^d_cap(E_d)/dE_d, are compared with theoretical calculations performed using the plane-wave impulse approximation with the realistic nearest-neighbor interaction Bonn B potential. Extrapolation to the full energy range yields total proton and deuteron capture rates in good agreement with former results.