Self-consistent value of the electric radius of the proton from the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen

Abstract

Recently a high-precision measurement of the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen has been performed. An accurate value of the proton charge radius can be extracted from this datum with a high accuracy. To do that a sufficient accuracy should be achieved also on the theoretical side, including an appropriate treatment of higher-order proton-structure effects. Here we consider a higher-order contribution of the finite size of the proton to the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen. Only model-dependent results for this correction have been known up to date. Meantime, the involved models are not consistent either with the existing experimental data on the electron-proton scattering or with the value for the electric charge radius of the proton extracted from the Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen. We consider the higher-order contribution of the proton finite size in a model-independent way and eventually derive a self-consistent value of the electric radius of the proton. The re-evaluated value of the proton charge radius is found to be R_E=0.84022(56) fm.