pionmuon

pionmuon refers to a phenomenon observed in particle physics where a pion decays into a muon and a neutrino. Specifically, the charged pion, pi+ or pi-, can undergo a weak interaction to produce a muon (mu+ or mu-) and its corresponding neutrino (anti-electron neutrino or electron neutrino, respectively). This decay is a primary example of a leptonic decay of a meson. The pionmuon decay is highly suppressed at rest for the neutral pion, pi0, which predominantly decays into photons.

The process for the positive pion decay is pi+ -> mu+ + nu_e. For the negative pion, the decay is pi- -> mu- + anti-nu_e. The muon is much heavier than the electron, and this decay is a significant source of muons in various particle physics experiments. The energy and momentum of the resulting muon and neutrino are constrained by conservation laws, leading to a characteristic energy spectrum for the muon. This decay mechanism is a key prediction of the Standard Model of particle physics and has been extensively studied to verify its properties and understand the underlying weak interactions. The lifetime of the pion is short, and its decay into a muon is one of its dominant decay modes.