Future perspective of muons; a quantum particle measuring quantum processes

Adam Berlie; Sayani Biswas; Alex Louat; Rhea Stewart; John Wilkinson

Future perspective of muons; a quantum particle measuring quantum processes

Other Condensed Matter 2026-08-11 v1 Quantum Physics

Authors: Adam Berlie , Sayani Biswas , Alex Louat , Rhea Stewart , John Wilkinson

Abstract

Although considered a niche technique, muon spectroscopy provides a unique and complementary insight into a range of different materials from hard condensed matter to biological samples and everything in between. In matter, the muon has a mass of $\frac{1}{9}~m_p$ or $207~m_e$ , and is a local probe of quantum states that can provide a focus on the bulk properties of materials. While often interpreted in a classical framework, the muon is itself a quantum particle and it is increasingly common for researchers to take account of this when thinking about muon spectroscopy experiments. In this perspective, we focus on the power of using this quantum treatment of muon spectroscopy, which is a key future direction for the technique.

Keywords

muon spectroscopy quantum particle local probe bulk properties condensed matter

Cite

@article{arxiv.2608.10856,
  title  = {Future perspective of muons; a quantum particle measuring quantum processes},
  author = {Adam Berlie and Sayani Biswas and Alex Louat and Rhea Stewart and John Wilkinson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2608.10856},
  year   = {2026}
}