to be emitted
with perfect spin polarization.
This is the greatest advantage of µSR as a magnetic resonance
technique: whereas NMR and ESR rely upon a
thermal equilibrium spin polarization,
usually achieved at low temperatures in strong magnetic fields,
µSR
begins with a perfectly polarized probe, regardless of conditions
in the medium to be studied. It also implies that muon spin degrees of
freedom usually start their evolution as far from thermal equilibrium as
conceivable.
Most µ+ beams
today are literally emitted from
positive pion decay at rest in the surface layer of the primary target where
the pions themselves are produced by collisions of high energy protons
with target nuclei - hence the common mnemonic name,
surface muons.
The propensity of the muon decay positron to be emitted along
the spin of the µ+ is another consequence of
P-violation in the weak interaction
which allows us to read out the information encoded in the evolution
of an initially polarized muon spin ensemble.
The information is delivered to the experimenter
in the form of rather high energy (up to 52 MeV) positrons
which readily penetrate sample holders, cryostats or ovens
and the detectors used to establish the time and direction of the muon
decay.
The decay probability of the muon depends
as shown here
upon the fraction x of the maximum possible
total relativistic e+ energy
of 52.83 MeV and the angle between
the muon spin direction and the direction of e+
emission.
The asymmetry factor a increases monotonically with
the e+ energy and is 100% for the maximum energy.
Note that a changes sign at low energy;
however, very few positrons are emitted with such low energies (see above)
and those which are will usually not be detected.
Jess H. Brewer
Last modified: Fri Dec 5 09:44:58 EST