Muon $g-2$ and Screened Modified Gravity

TL;DR

This paper explores how light scalar fields, especially screened ones like chameleons and symmetrons, could explain the muon g-2 anomaly by affecting magnetic moments through classical and quantum effects, suggesting a link to modified gravity.

Contribution

It demonstrates that screened scalar fields can account for the muon g-2 discrepancy, providing a novel connection between modified gravity theories and laboratory particle physics measurements.

Findings

Screened scalar fields can explain the muon g-2 anomaly.

Unscreened scalars are negligible due to experimental bounds.

Modified gravity effects may be detectable in laboratory experiments.

Abstract

We show how light scalar fields can account for the discrepancy between the theoretical and observed values of the anomalous magnetic moment of the (anti)muon. When coupled to both matter and photons, light scalar fields induce a change of the anomalous magnetic moment of charged particles. This arises from two concurrent effects. Classically, light scalars induce a change of the cyclotron frequency, complementing the electromagnetic effects coming from the magnetic and electric fields used experimentally. Light scalars also contribute to the anomalous magnetic moment quantum mechanically at the one-loop level. For unscreened scalar fields coupling with a Yukawa interaction to matter, these contributions are negligible after applying the Cassini bound on deviations from Newtonian gravity. On the other hand, screened scalars such as chameleons or symmetrons can couple strongly to matter in the laboratory and decouple in the Solar System. This allows us to probe branches of their parameter spaces where the recently measured anomalous magnetic moment of the (anti)muon can be accounted for in the chameleon and symmetron cases. This might be a hint that modified gravity is at play in the laboratory.