Muon decay in a laser field

TL;DR

This paper examines how a laser field affects muon decay rates, concluding that the change is small and providing analytic formulas for these minor corrections, contrasting earlier findings of potentially large effects.

Contribution

The paper offers a more intuitive analysis showing small decay rate modifications and derives analytic expressions for these corrections, improving understanding of laser-muon interactions.

Findings

Decay rate change is small in a laser field

Provides analytic formulas for decay corrections

Contrasts with previous predictions of large effects

Abstract

We investigate the change in the decay rate of a muon caused by embedding it in the field of a laser. A previous paper found that the change could be large, as much as an order of magnitude. We find the more intuitive result that the change is small and give analytic expressions for the small corrections.