Vacuum polarization effects in low-energy muonic atom collisions.

Abstract

We estimate the vacuum polarization (VP) correction to the Coulomb interaction in collisions of muonic atoms. It is shown that the VP effect, amplified by the low-lying virtual state ${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\vartheta}}}$\ensuremath{\sim}10 eV, is of the order of \ensuremath{\sim}1--2 % in the S-wave cross sections for p\ensuremath{\mu}+p collisions as \ensuremath{\varepsilon}\ensuremath{\le}${\mathrm{\ensuremath{\varepsilon}}}_{\mathrm{\ensuremath{\vartheta}}}$. The VP amplitude becomes comparable to the anomalously small pure Coulomb amplitude for the singlet t\ensuremath{\mu}+t scattering as \ensuremath{\varepsilon}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}0 and near the Ramsauer-Townsend minima in the d\ensuremath{\mu}+p and t\ensuremath{\mu}+p scattering.