Negative muons produced via the backward decay of pions in the M9b beam channel at TRIUMF were stopped in a ²⁸Si target. The energies of the muonic X-rays and nuclear γ-rays following the muon capture were measured in order to identify a Doppler broadened γ ray line in ²⁸A1 which is suitable for analysis in terms of a γ — ν angular correlation to determine a value for the induced-pseudoscalar coupling constant (gp ). The muon beam was also stopped in 6 other background targets ( polythene, A1, stainless steel, Cu, Pb and BGO ) and their X- and γ-ray energies have been studied so as to fully understand the backgrounds associated with such a transition. / Science, Faculty of / Physics and Astronomy, Department of / Graduate

A large acceptance pair spectrometer to detect photons from the radiative muon capture (RMC) process was built. The spectrometer was used to measure the RMC branching ratio for AI, Si, Ca, Mo, Sn and Pb. Two recent theoretical models were used to extract the RMC branching ratio in Ca. The experin1ental result is in good agreement with the world average value, but yields a value for the pseudoscalar coupling constant, gp, which is lower than the Goldberger-Treiman PCAC prediction. In the absence of a theoretical model to predict the R11C rates for Al and 5i, only the branching ratios for these targets are reported. For Mo, 5n, and Pb, the branching ratios found were consistent with the Fermi gas n10del for which a nill contribution from the pseudoscalar coupling was assumed. Good agreement was found between the experimental results and what is predicted fron1 using the simple, closure approximation. The RMC world data indicates a close connection between the branching ratios and Q, where Q is the ratio between the difference and the sum of neutrons and protons for any element, (Q = ~Z~~J). It is suggested that future experiments study different isotopes to isolate the Z and the Q dependence of the R11C rates. This experiment also served as a test ground for the RMC experin1ent in liquid hydrogen which is now in progress at TRIUMF. / Ph. D.