Eur. Phys. J. A 11, 39-45 (2001)

Muon capture on neutron-rich nuclei

E. Kolbe¹, K. Langanke² and K. Riisager<sup>2

1</sup>  Physics Division, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6373, USA
²  Institute for Physics and Astronomy, University of Aarhus, DK-8000 Aarhus, Denmark

langanke@ifa.au.dk

(Received: 6 April 2001 / Revised version: 8 May 2001 Communicated by J. Äystö)

Abstract
Future facilities will allow the exploration of extremely neutron-rich nuclei far from the valley of stability. It is discussed that the strong-neutron excess results in changes in the collective excitations of such nuclei compared to conventional stable nuclei. We propose muon capture as an experimental tool to explore such changes. We will quantify our discussion by the calculation of the total and differential muon capture rates on selected calcium isotopes between ⁴⁰Ca and ⁶⁰Ca. Our calculations are based on the random phase approximation and agree nicely with the measured rates for ⁴⁰Ca and ⁴⁴Ca.

PACS
24.30.Cz - Giant resonances.
23.40.-s - Beta decay; double beta decay; electron and muon capture.
23.40.Hc - Relation with nuclear matrix elements and nuclear structure.

© Società Italiana di Fisica, Springer-Verlag 2001