Laser-Assisted Muon Decay

Abstract

We show theoretically that the muon lifetime can be changed dramatically by embedding the decaying muon in a strong linearly polarized laser field. Evaluating the S-matrix elements taking all electronic multiphoton processes into account we find that a CO(2) laser with an electric field amplitude of 10(6) V cm(-1) results in an order of magnitude shorter lifetime of the muon. We also analyze the dependencies of the decay rate on the laser frequency and intensity.

Liu, Li, and Berakdar Reply:

“…We agree on the smallness of these two parameters; physically, quantifies the velocity of the muon quiver motion in the laser field whereas the condition for the value of E S follows from the requirement that the energy transferred from the laser field to the muon within a Compton wave length of the muon should be comparable to the rest energy of the muon, i.e., e E S m c 2 [here h=m c]. In our case, the field is weak, and since the moun is heavy, the laser dressing of the moun plays only a minor role and is, therefore, as stated in our Letter, neglected altogether in [2]. As discussed in details in [2], we argued that the driving mechanism for the laserassisted decay is the laser dressing of the electronic states.…”

“…We also ignored completely the direct laser influence on the moun, for the reasons mentioned above. At this stage, it is not clear whether and to which extent the incorporation of these additional factors in the calculations would alter the conclusions of [2]. …”

Laser-assisted neutral Higgs-boson pair production in Inert Higgs Doublet Model (IHDM)

“…Recently, much attention was devoted to the possibility of using powerful laser fields to test physical theories such as standard model and beyond [3]. This interest is due not only to the rapid development of laser sources but also for the fact that a large of unknown phenomena were induced by laser-matter interaction [4][5][6][7].…”

Multiphoton processes in laser-assisted scattering of a muon neutrino by an electron

“…Nonlinear Compton scattering induced by a linearly polarized laser field with high-velocity electrons has been studied by [4], while a subsequent investigation is the Coulomb scattering-the so-called Mott scattering in the presence of a linearly and elliptically polarized laser field [5][6][7][8][9]. Moreover, many authors have been enthusiastically investigating some other interesting MPP processes, such as particle decay in the presence of laser fields within weak interactions [10][11][12], the laser-assisted bremsstrahlung [13,14], and pair production [15].…”

“…In view of the prominent influence of applied laser field on the collision process just as depicted in [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15], in this paper * brite@mail.ustc.edu.cn we concentrate on the laser-assisted muon-neutrino-electron elastic scattering process ν μ + e − → ν μ + e − . The electrons immersed in laser fields will be dressed as Dirac-Volkov states [17] in the initial and final channels, which would lead to considerable multiphoton processes.…”