Cross section of the Coulomb excitation of ^(229m)Th by low energy muons

The inelastic scattering cross section for muons,μ^(-),with energies E=9-100 eV from the ^(229)Th nuclei is calculated in the framework of the second order of the perturbation theory for quantum electrodynamics.The dominant contribution to the excitation of the low energy isomer ^(229m)Th(3/2^(+),8.19±0.12 eV)originates from the E2 multipole.The excitation cross section reaches the value of 10^(-21) cm^(2) in the range E≈10 eV.This value is four to five orders of magnitude larger than the electron excitation cross section and is sufficient for the efficient excitation of ^(229m)Th on the muon beam at the next generation of muon colliders.