Paper detail

Extending theories on muon-specific interactions

The proton radius puzzle, the discrepancy between the proton radius measured in muonic hydrogen and electronic hydrogen, has yet to be resolved. There are suggestions that beyond the standard model (BSM) physics could resolve both this puzzle and the muon anomalous magnetic moment discrepancy. Karshenboim et al. point out that simple, nonrenormalizable, models in this direction involving new vector bosons have serious problems when confronting high energy data. The prime example is radiative corrections to W to mu nu decay which exceed experimental bounds. We show how embedding the model in a larger and arguably renormalizable theory restores gauge invariance of the vector particle interactions and controls the high energy behavior of decay and scattering amplitudes. Thus BSM explanations of the proton radius puzzle can still be viable.