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 ≤ Z ≤ 9 . The discrepancy between the perturbative ( α Z ) 2 result in H. Überall [] and the fully relativistic partial-wave calculation of R. Watanabe [] 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 α Z expansion and indicate a negative sign for the next-order ( α Z ) 3 correction.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Neutrino Physics Research
Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Physical review. D/Physical review. D.
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Volume
- 113
- Issue
- 3
- Publication date
- 6 February 2026
- Language
- EN