Muonium

Muonium (English muonium ) is an exotic atom from an anti- muon and an electron. The anti - muon, a muon with a positive elementary charge, has a lifetime of about 2 microseconds and is the representative of the proton compared to a normal hydrogen atom .. This exotic atom is one of the most fundamental systems of atomic physics. The muonium atom behaves chemically like hydrogen and thus provides a lighter by a factor of 36 hydrogen isotope dar. It was discovered in 1960 by Vernon Hughes and employees.

Precise spectroscopic measurements on the atom to have very precise values ​​for fundamental constants of nature, such as out of the mass of the muon, the magnetic moment of the muon and the coupling constant of the electromagnetic interaction, the Sommerfeld fine-structure constant. The accuracy of the theoretical description of muonium far exceeds that which is possible for ordinary hydrogen, since the atomic system consists solely of leptons, which may be regarded as a point. Measurements on Myoniumatom are therefore with respect to the validity of fundamental forces in physics such far superior to natural hydrogen, although those are possible in some cases with higher technical accuracy.

Furthermore, the atom has been used for a precise test of the conservation of lepton charged; one of the great unsolved mysteries of modern physics. It was looking at the Swiss Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI ) to spontaneous transitions from the atomic muonium in his anti-nuclear Antimyonium. With this experiment, a large number of speculative theories beyond the Standard Model could be excluded. In addition, a highly accurate test of CPT symmetry and the Lorentz invariance was performed on the atom.

The muonium atom is also used in the study of condensed matter. Here it is often viewed as a light isotope of hydrogen, which, inter alia, Can examine diffusion properties of hydrogen in materials and magnetic properties of materials. The dynamics of chemical processes can be studied with it.

The muonium atom differs fundamentally from muonic atoms in which one electron is replaced by a negative muon.

Footnotes

• Nuclear physics