Radiative muon capture in heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory

The radiative muon capture (RMC) on a proton is analyzed by means of heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. The emitted photon energy spectrum is calculated and compared with the experimental data by taking the spin sum on the muonic atom states. We find that one-loop order corrections to the tree order amplitude modify the photon spectrum by less than five percent. This calculation supports that the theory is under a quantitative control as far as the chiral perturbation expansion is concerned and indicates that the discrepancy between the pseudo-scalar coupling constant required by the RMC experiment and the one deduced from ordinary muon capture, the value of which is also supported by chiral perturbation calculations, will remain unexplained from the theoretical side. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science B.V.