Fresh extraction of the proton charge radius from electron scattering

Abstract

We present a novel method for extracting the proton radius from elastic electron-proton ($ep$) scattering data. The approach is based on interpolation via continued fractions augmented by statistical sampling and avoids any assumptions on the form of function used for the representation of data and subsequent extrapolation onto $Q^2\simeq 0$. Applying the method to extant modern $ep$ data sets, we find that all results are mutually consistent and, combining them, arrive at $r_p=0.847(8)$fm. This result compares favourably with values obtained from contemporary measurements of the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen, transitions in electronic hydrogen, and muonic deuterium spectroscopy.

Comments: 7 pages, 4 figures. Version accepted for publication in Phys. Rev. Lett