Revised and Improved Value of the QED Tenth-Order Electron Anomalous Magnetic Moment

TL;DR

This paper refines the theoretical calculation of the electron's anomalous magnetic moment by correcting a key integral value, leading to a more precise estimate of fundamental constants and confirming the consistency of QED predictions.

Contribution

The paper provides a corrected and more accurate numerical evaluation of the tenth-order QED contribution to the electron magnetic moment, improving the precision of fundamental constant determinations.

Findings

Corrected the value of integral X024, causing a -1.25 shift in Set V contribution.

Updated the tenth-order universal term to A_1^{(10)}=6.678(192).

Refined the theoretical value of the electron and muon anomalous magnetic moments.

Abstract

In order to improve the theoretical prediction of the electron anomalous magnetic moment $a_e$ we have carried out a new numerical evaluation of the 389 integrals of Set V, which represent 6,354 Feynman vertex diagrams without lepton loops. During this work, we found that one of the integrals, called $X024$, was given a wrong value in the previous calculation due to an incorrect assignment of integration variables. The correction of this error causes a shift of $-1.25$ to the Set~V contribution, and hence to the tenth-order universal (i.e., mass-independent) term $ A_1^{(10)}$. The previous evaluation of all other 388 integrals is free from errors and consistent with the new evaluation. Combining the new and the old (excluding $X024$) calculations statistically, we obtain $7.606~(192) (\alpha/\pi)^5$ as the best estimate of the Set V contribution. Including the contribution of the diagrams with fermion loops, the improved tenth-order universal term becomes $A_1^{(10)}=6.678~(192)$. Adding hadronic and electroweak contributions leads to the theoretical prediction $a_e (\text{theory}) =1~159~652~182.032~(720)\times 10^{-12}$. From this and the best measurement of $a_e$, we obtain the inverse fine-structure constant $\alpha^{-1}(a_e) = 137.035~999~1491~(331)$. The theoretical prediction of the muon anomalous magnetic moment is also affected by the update of QED contribution and the new value of $\alpha$, but the shift is much smaller than the theoretical uncertainty.