The paper describes an experiment aimed at studying muon capture by
3He nuclei in pure 3He and D2+3He mixtures at various densities. Energy distributions of
protons and deuterons produced via μ−+3He→p+n+n+νμ and μ−+3He→d+n+νμ are measured for the
energy intervals 10−49 MeV and 13−31 MeV, respectively. Muon capture
rates, λcapp(ΔEp) and λcapd(ΔEd) are obtained using two different analysis methods. The
least--squares methods gives λcapp=(36.7±1.2)s−1, λcapd=(21.3±1.6)s−1. The Bayes theorem
gives λcapp=(36.8±0.8)s−1,
λcapd=(21.9±0.6)s−1. The experimental
differential capture rates, dλcapp(Ep)/dEp and dλcapd(Ed)/dEd, are compared with theoretical
calculations performed using the plane--wave impulse approximation (PWIA) with
the realistic NN interaction Bonn B potential. Extrapolation to the full energy
range yields total proton and deuteron capture rates in good agreement with
former results.Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in PR