ON THE NUCLEAR CAPTURE OF NEGATIVE MUONS WITH ELECTRON EMISSION

An experimental search is described for the neutrinoless mu /sup -/ capture reaction mu /sup -/ + N yields N + e/sup -/. mu /sup -/ mesons at 600 Mev stop in a copper target. The upper limit for the branching ratio of the process searched for, relative to ordinary muon capture, is improved by a factor of more than 20 with respect to previous measurements. (auth)