Paper detail

A hitchhiker's guide to nuclear polarization in muonic atoms

I consider the so-called nuclear polarization correction to the 1S-levels in light to intermediate muonic atoms. An easy to use recipe to compute it is given. The calculation includes the effect of the nucleon polarization, i.e. the contribution from inelastic states in the hadronic range, and Coulomb corrections beyond the leading logarithm approximation to both nuclear and nucleon polarization. I provide numerical estimates for $4\leq Z\leq41$, compare to the estimates in the literature and discuss the need for future improvements.