Paper detail

New measurements of the proton's size and structure using polarized photons

Improved measurements of the proton's structure are now possible thanks to significant technical advances that allow us to probe the proton with polarized photons. These measurements have shown that the proton is not as simple as previously believed: quark orbital angular momentum and relativistic effects play an important role and the spatial distribution of charge and magnetization do not simply mimic the spatial distribution of the quarks. Even more recently, the large scale structure and size of the proton have been examined more carefully, and a significant discrepancy has been observed between the charge radius of the proton as measured in the Lamb shift of muonic hydrogen and measurements using the electron-proton interaction.