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Determination of the muon lifetime in Se76 with the MONUMENT experiment

G. R. Araujo1, D. Bajpai2, L. Baudis1, V. Belov3, E. Bossio4,*, T. E. Cocolios5, H. Ejiri6, M. Fomina3, K. Gusev3,4 et al. (MONUMENT Collaboration)

K. Gusev3,4, I. H. Hashim7, M. Heines5, S. Kazartsev3, A. Knecht8, E. Mondragón4,†,‡, Z. W. Ng7, I. Ostrovskiy9, N. Rumyantseva3,4, S. Schönert4, M. Schwarz4, M. Shirchenko3, Y. Shitov10, A. Shehada3, E. Shevchik3, J. Suhonen11,12, S. M. Vogiatzi5, C. Vogl4, C. Wiesinger4,‡, I. Zhitnikov3,§, and D. Zinatulina3 (MONUMENT Collaboration)

  • *Present address: IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
  • †Contact author: elizabeth.mondragon@mpi-hd.mpg.de
  • ‡Present address: Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, Heidelberg, Germany.
  • §Contact author: i.zhitnikov@gmail.com
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Phys. Rev. C 113, 064613 – Published 16 June, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/ky7q-nbr7

Abstract

Ordinary muon capture provides a benchmark for the nuclear physics models of neutrinoless 39 double beta decay under comparable momentum transfer conditions. The total capture strength defines the lifetime of the muonic atom. The muon lifetime in Se76, the daughter nucleus of Ge76, was determined with improved accuracy by the MONUMENT collaboration, using an array of high-purity germanium detectors and a set of scintillator counters at the πE1 muon beam line of the Paul Scherrer Institute. The new value of (135.1±0.5) ns agrees with phenomenological calculations based on the quasiparticle random-phase approximation with unquenched axial-vector coupling.

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Phys. Rev. C 113, 064613– Published 16 June, 2026
  • Received 28 October 2025
  • Revised 25 February 2026
  • Accepted 10 April 2026
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