DENSITY DEPENDENCE OF CONVOY-MUON CAPTURE AFTER MUON-CATALYZED FUSION

The capture of convoy muons by fusion alpha-particles is reexamined following the theory of Muller, Rafelski, and Rafelski [Phys. Rev. A 40, 2839 (1989)] but including an appropriate treatment of collisionless muon transport in three space dimensions. As a first estimate we find that the initial convoy-muon capture probability increases with at least the second power of the density in the medium. The convoy-muon effect hence provides no immediate explanation for the observed density dependence of the muon sticking probability following deuterium-tritium muon-catalyzed fusion.