Mu3e Experiment

The Mu3e experiment will search for the decay of a muon to three electrons, which is violating lepton flavor conservation. Since this decay is suppressed to unobservable levels in the standard model of particle physics, any measurement of this decay would be a clear sign of new physics.

The experiment is currently under construction and will take place in the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland. The first physics run is expected in 2020.

The Mu3e experiment will have to observe more than 1016  (10 million billion) muon decays in order to probe the existence of new physics beyond the standard model. This enormous number of muons will be reached by utilizing the worlds most intense muon beam, which produces more than 109 muons per second. These muons are stopped on a double-cone target, where they decay and their products are subsequently detected by the Mu3e detector. The experiment requires to be able to handle high rates, to have good vertex resolution (<200 μm) and time resolution (<0.1 ns), as well as excellent momentum resolution (< 0.5 MeV/c) for electrons and positrons in the range 10-53 MeV/c.

Personnel:

Group Leader:

  • Joost Vossebeld

Academic and Research Staff:

  • Nikolaos Rompotis
  • Helen Hayward
  • Eva Vilella