Testing Exotic Electron-Electron Interactions with the Helium Ionization-Energy Anomaly

TL;DR

This study investigates the helium ionization-energy anomaly using atomic spectroscopy, ruling out many exotic interactions and narrowing down the possible scalar-mediated explanations within a single-boson framework.

Contribution

It provides a model-independent analysis that excludes several types of exotic electron-electron interactions as explanations for the anomaly.

Findings

Vector-vector and pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar interactions are excluded.

Axial-vector scenarios are further constrained and largely excluded.

A narrow parameter space for scalar-mediated interactions remains viable.

Abstract

Precision atomic spectroscopy provides a sensitive probe of physics beyond the Standard Model. A recently reported $9\sigma$ theory-experiment discrepancy in the ionization energy of metastable helium has motivated the hypothesis of a new boson mediating exotic electron-electron interactions. Using a model-independent sign-consistency analysis of the induced energy shifts, we show that the sign requirement alone excludes vector-vector and pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar interactions as possible explanations of the anomaly. Incorporating existing constraints together with improved limits obtained here further excludes axial-vector scenarios. Within the single-boson framework considered in this work, only a narrowly constrained scalar-mediated interaction remains viable. The remaining parameter space could be probed, for example, by modest improvements in the determination of the electron gyromagnetic ratio.