Reduction of the proton radius discrepancy by 3 sigma

TL;DR

This paper addresses the proton radius discrepancy by improving the statistical analysis of electron-proton scattering data, achieving a radius measurement consistent with muonic hydrogen results.

Contribution

It introduces a conformal mapping-based fit method that better estimates uncertainties and aligns electron scattering measurements with muonic hydrogen findings.

Findings

The new method reduces the proton radius discrepancy to within 3 sigma.

It demonstrates that previous analyses underestimated uncertainties.

The approach yields a proton radius consistent with muonic hydrogen measurements.

Abstract

We show that in previous analyses of electron-proton scattering, the uncertainties in the statistical procedure to extract the proton charge radius are underestimated. Using a fit function based on a conformal mapping, we can describe the scattering data with high precision and extract a radius value in agreement with the one obtained from muonic hydrogen.