The Rydberg constant and proton size from atomic hydrogen

Beyer, Axel; Maisenbacher, Lothar; Matveev, Arthur; Pohl, Randolf; Khabarova, Ksenia; Grinin, Alexey; Lamour, Tobias; Yost, Dylan C.; Hänsch, Theodor W.; Kolachevsky, Nikolai und Udem, Thomas (2017): The Rydberg constant and proton size from atomic hydrogen. In: Science, Bd. 358, Nr. 6359: S. 79-85

Abstract

At the core of the "proton radius puzzle" is a four-standard deviation discrepancy between the proton root-mean-square charge radii (r(p)) determined from the regular hydrogen (H) and the muonic hydrogen (mu p) atoms. Using a cryogenic beam of H atoms, we measured the 2S-4P transition frequency in H, yielding the values of the Rydberg constant R-infinity = 10973731.568076(96) per meter and r(p) = 0.8335(95) femtometer. Our r(p) value is 3.3 combined standard deviations smaller than the previous H world data, but in good agreement with the mu p value. We motivate an asymmetric fit function, which eliminates line shifts from quantum interference of neighboring atomic resonances.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Physik
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 530 Physik
• ISSN: 0036-8075
• Sprache: Englisch