  By measuring the lifetime of the negative muon in pure protium (hydrogen-1),
the MuCap experiment determines the rate of muon capture on the proton, from
which the proton's pseudoscalar coupling g_p may be inferred. A precision of
15% for g_p has been published; this is a step along the way to a goal of 7%.
This coupling can be calculated precisely from heavy baryon chiral perturbation
theory and therefore permits a test of QCD's chiral symmetry. Meanwhile, the
MuSun experiment is in its final design stage; it will measure the rate of muon
capture on the deuteron using a similar technique. This process can be related
through pionless effective field theory and chiral perturbation theory to other
two-nucleon reactions of astrophysical interest, including proton-proton fusion
and deuteron breakup.
