Ephemeral and/or coloured muonic hydrogen atoms

Abstract

The unexpected and, in conventional terms, yet unexplained experimental results, obtained in systematic measurements of muon transfer from muonic hydrogen to sulphur and oxygen of sulphur dioxide, seem to violate the principle of reproducibility of muon transfer data. With the hypothesis of ephemeral muonic hydrogen atoms, the number of different hydrogen atoms can be reduced from four to two. This hypothesis does, however, not help to interpret the transfer data to helium, neon and argon, where the muonic hydrogen atoms seem to wear colours.