Cascade depolarization of the negative muons

Abstract

A classical description of the atomic capture and cascade is used to calculate the muon spin precession. The binding energies and orbital angular momenta at which the total angular momentumj becomes a good quantum number are calculated. The depolarization in the quantall part of the cascade is also studied. Using this information, and assuming a statistical initial angular momentum distribution, we calculate the residual polarization of the muon in the 1s state. The results agree substantially better with the experimental data than the previously used theoretical predictions. Moreover, it is shown that the residual polarization does not depend very sensitively on the initial angular momentum distribution.