Lepton pair production in muon-nucleus scattering

Abstract

The MUonE experiment aims at providing a novel determination of the leading hadronic contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment through the study of elastic muon-electron scattering. Since the initial-state electrons are bound in a low-$Z$ atomic target, the interaction between the incoming muons and the nuclei is expected to be the main source of experimental background. In this article, we study the production of a real lepton pair from the muon-nucleus scattering, discussing its numerical impact in the MUonE kinematic configuration. The process is described as a scattering of a muon in an external Coulomb field with the addition of a form factor to describe the nuclear charge distribution. The calculation is implemented in the fully differential Monte Carlo event generator MESMER, without introducing any approximation on the angular variables.

Comments: 10 pages, 11 figures, 2 tables, version accepted for publication