Laser polarized muonic helium

Polarized muonic He-3 by stopping unpolarized negative muons in a gaseous He-3 target which was polarized by spin exchange with laser optically pumped Rb vapor. The resulting muon polarization (MP) normalized to the nuclear polarization of the He-3 was measured. In addition to being a property that characterizes the muon cascade in the mu-He-3 system, MP is of practical value for future experiments on nuclear muon capture. The result, MP = 0.072 +/- 0.008, is a factor of two smaller than predicted by simple atomic cascade theory. (Author)