Muon sites in PbF2 and YF3: decohering environments and the role of anion Frenkel defects

Abstract

Muons implanted into ionic fluorides often lead to a so-called F-mu-F state, in which the time evolution of the muon spin contains information about the geometry and nature of the muon site. Nuclei more distant from the muon than the two nearest-neighbor fluorine ions result in decoherence of the F-mu-F system and this can yield additional quantitative information about the state of the muon. We demonstrate how this can be applied to the determination of muon sites within the ionic fluorides alpha-PbF2 and YF3 which contain fluoride ions in different crystallographic environments. Our results can be used to distinguish between different crystal phases and reveal the presence of anion Frenkel defects in alpha-PbF2.