One of the Universe's most common particles has left physicists completely stumped. The proton, a fundamental constituent of the atomic nucleus, seems to be smaller than thought. And despite three years of careful analysis and reanalysis of numerous experiments, nobody can figure out why. Read more
Title: Determining the size of the proton Authors: N. G. Kelkar, F. Garcia Daza, M. Nowakowski
A measurement of the Lamb shift of 49,881.88(76) GHz in muonic hydrogen in conjunction with theoretical estimates of the proton structure effects was recently used to deduce an accurate but rather small radius of the proton. Such an important shift in the understanding of fundamental values needs reconfirmation. Using a different approach with electromagnetic form factors of the proton, we obtain a new expression for the transition energy, \Delta = E_{2P_{{3}/{2}}}^{f=2} - E_{2S_{{1}/{2}}}^{f=1}, in muonic hydrogen and deduce a proton radius, r_p = 0.83623 fm.