Stopping muon beams
The study of rare processes using stopping muon beams provides access to new physics that cannot be addressed at energy frontier machines. The flux of muons into a small stopping target is limited by the production process and by stochastic processes in the material used to slow the particles. Innovative muon beam cooling techniques are being applied to the design of stopping muon beams in order to increase the event rates in such experiments. Intense stopping muon beams will also aid the development of applications such as muon spin resonance and muon-catalyzed fusion.
The MECO experiment: a search for lepton flavor violation in muonic atoms
Abstract MECO will search for direct evidence of muon and electron flavor violation in the decay of muons in Coulomb bound states via coherent recoil of the nucleus and decay electron. The expected sensitivity to the μ − N→e − +N branching fraction relative to muon capture μ − N (A, Z)→ ν μ + N (A, Z−1) is R μe −17 at 90% confidence level, roughly 3–4 orders of magnitude lower than current limits. This article provides an overview of the experiment.
Use of gas-filled cavities in muon capture for a neutrino factory
Recent studies indicate that gas-filled cavities can provide high-gradient acceleration and simultaneous cooling for muons. In this paper we explore using these cavities in the front-end of the capture and cooling systems for neutrino factories. We consider capturing beam in high-frequency buckets and phase-energy rotating and cooling them using gas-filled rf cavities. Scenario variants are described and studied. The same techniques could also initiate muon beam generation for a muon collider.