Muon capture on deuteron using local chiral potentials

The muon capture reaction mu (-) + d -> n + n + nu ( mu ) in the doublet hyperfine state is studied using nuclear potentials and consistent currents derived in the chiral effective field theory, which are local and expressed in coordinate space (the so-called Norfolk models). Only the largest contribution due to the (1) S (0) nn scattering state is considered. Particular attention is given to the estimate of theoretical uncertainty, for which four sources have been identified: 1) the model dependence, 2) the chiral-order convergence for the weak nuclear current, 3) the uncertainty in the single-nucleon axial form factor, and 4) the numerical technique adopted to solve the bound and scattering A = 2 systems. This last source of uncertainty has turned out to be essentially negligible. For the (1) S (0) doublet muon capture rate & UGamma; D ( S 0 1 ) , we obtain gamma(D) ( S 0 1 ) = 255.8 ( 0.6 ) ( 4.4 ) ( 2.9 ) s(-1), where the three errors come from the first three sources of uncertainty. The value for & UGamma; D ( S 0 1 ) obtained within this local chiral framework is compared with previous calculations and found in very good agreement.