Possible Electromagnetically Induced Muonium-An timuonium Conversion

Abstract

The possibility of the existence of an electromagnetically induced transition between muonium and anti-muonium is examined. An experiment is suggested involving the formation of muonium by the injection of positive muons into a helium-filled resonant cavity, which is excited at a frequency corresponding to the difference in interaction energy between muonium and helium, on the one hand, and that between anti-muonium and helium, on the other. The sign of antimuonium formation is the observation of the fast electrons from ${\ensuremath{\mu}}^{\ensuremath{-}}$ decay. The dependence of the number of these on which of the various cavity modes is excited gives information on the relative intrinsic parity of muonium and antimuonium. If this turns out to be odd, then this measurement, when combined with the usual relation for the product of the intrinsic parities of a Dirac particle and its antiparticle, would determine the relative intrinsic parity of the muon and electron to be imaginary. The conservation of parity in electromagnetic phenomena and the absence of electromagnetic $\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{-}e$ transitions would then both find their natural explanation in the single assumption that the observation of electromagnetic phenomena must be compatible with invariance under space inversion.