Kinetics of muonic helium in muon-catalyzed d-d and d-t fusion.

Abstract

An accurate kinetics treatment is applied to the muonic helium atoms formed by a muon's sticking to the charged particle produced in muon-catalyzed d-d and d-t fusion. Cross sections for l- and n- changing transitions are included to describe density-dependent stripping and x-ray production. Coupled with recent accurate calculations of the initial sticking, the results are generally in very good agreement with experiments. The noteworthy exception is that the density dependence of the sticking is much weaker than previously observed, in agreement with preliminary results of a new experiment.