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The positive muon is also not attracted to the nucleus of atoms. Instead, it binds a random electron and with this electron forms an exotic atom known as muonium (mu) atom. In this atom, the muon acts as the nucleus. The positive muon, in this context, can be considered a pseudo-isotope of hydrogen with one ninth of the mass of the proton.
Muonium (/ m juː ˈ oʊ n i ə m /) is an exotic atom made up of an antimuon and an electron, [1] which was discovered in 1960 by Vernon W. Hughes [2] and is given the chemical symbol Mu. During the muon's 2.2 µs lifetime, muonium can undergo chemical reactions. [3]
In particle physics, a lepton is an elementary particle of half-integer spin (spin 1 / 2 ) that does not undergo strong interactions. [1] Two main classes of leptons exist: charged leptons (also known as the electron-like leptons or muons), including the electron, muon, and tauon, and neutral leptons, better known as neutrinos.
The atom then has a nucleus with two protons, two neutrons and one muon, with total nuclear charge +1 (from two protons and one muon) and only one electron outside, so that it is effectively an isotope of hydrogen instead of an isotope of helium. A muon's weight is approximately 0.1 Da so the isotopic mass is 4.1. Since there is only one ...
Initially after its discovery in 1936, the muon (initially called the "mu meson") was thought to be this particle, since it has a mass of 106 MeV/c 2. However, later experiments showed that the muon did not participate in the strong nuclear interaction. In modern terminology, this makes the muon a lepton, and not a meson. However, some ...
Likewise, a decaying negative muon results in the creation of a muon neutrino, while a decaying positive muon results in the creation of a muon antineutrino. [5] Finally, the weak decay of a lepton into a lower-mass lepton always results in the production of a neutrino-antineutrino pair: τ − → μ − + ν μ + ν τ.
Diagram showing the process of electron–positron pair production. In reality the produced pair are nearly collinear. The black dot labelled 'Z' represents an adjacent atom, with atomic number Z. For photons with high photon energy (MeV scale and higher), pair production is the dominant mode of photon interaction with matter.
Consider the decay of the positive muon: μ + → e + + ν e + ν ¯ μ . {\displaystyle \mu ^{+}\to e^{+}+\nu _{e}+{\bar {\nu }}_{\mu }.} In the muon rest frame , energy and angular distributions of the positrons emitted in the decay of a polarised muon expressed in terms of Michel parameters are the following, neglecting electron and neutrino ...