The alpha particle charge radius, the radion and the proton radius puzzle

Abstract

Recent measurements of the Lamb shift of muonic helium-4 ions were used to infer the alpha particle charge radius. The value found is compatible with the radius extracted from the analysis of the electron-helium scattering. Thus, the new spectroscopic data put additional empiric bounds on some free parameters of certain physics theories beyond the Standard Model. In this paper, we analyze the new data in the context of large extra-dimensional theories. Specifically, we calculate the influence of the radion, the scalar degree of freedom of the higher-dimensional gravity, on the energy difference between the 2S and 2P levels of this exotic atom. The radion field is related to fluctuations of the volume of the supplementary space, and, in comparison with the tensorial degrees of freedom, it couples to matter in a different way. Moreover, as some stabilization mechanism acts exclusively on the scalar degree of freedom, the tensor and scalar fields should be treated as phenomenologically independent quantities. Based on the spectroscopic data of muonic helium, we find constraints for the effective energy scale of the radion as a function of the alpha particle radius. Then, we discuss the implications of these new constraints on the proton radius puzzle.