Low-energy negative muon interaction with matter

TL;DR

This paper uses FLUKA simulations to analyze how low-energy negative muons propagate and stop in various materials, providing empirical formulas to aid experimental design in muon capture and muonic atom research.

Contribution

It offers new empirical regularities and approximate expressions for muon distributions, enhancing understanding of muon behavior in matter at low energies.

Findings

Empirical formulas for muon momentum, spatial, and angular distributions.

Results agree with existing data on muon stopping power and range.

Provides statistical spread descriptions of muon characteristics.

Abstract

Using simulated data, obtained with the FLUKA code, we derive empirical regularities about the propagation and stopping of low-energy negative muons in hydrogen and selected solid materials. The results are intended to help the preliminary stages of the set-up design for experimental studies of muon capture and muonic atom spectroscopy. Provided are approximate expressions for the parameters of the the momentum, spatial and angular distribution of the propagating muons. In comparison with the available data on the stopping power and range of muons (with which they agree in the considered energy range) these results have the advantage to also describe the statistical spread of the muon characteristics of interest.