Possibility of discharge of metastable nuclei during negative muon capture

A negative μ meson captured by a metastable nucleus may accelerate the discharge of the latter by many orders of magnitude. For a certain relation between the energy ranges of the nuclear and mesonic levels the discharge may be followed by the ejection of a meson which may then participate in the discharge of other nuclei. For a sample with a sufficiently high density of metastable nuclei and a sufficiently intense meson beam this process results in a sharp increase of γ radioactivity of the sample and may be used as the basis of operation of a highpower source of monochromatic γ radiation. The metastable decay probabilities for various channels in the presence of a meson are calculated within the framework of the one-particle model. The conditions for an experimental observation of the discharge acceleration effect are discussed