A Possible Explanation of the Proton Radius Puzzle Based on the Second Flavor of Muonic Hydrogen Atoms

Abstract

The proton radius puzzle is one of the most fundamental challenges of modern physics. Before the year 2010, the proton charge radius rp was determined by the spectroscopic method, relying on the electron energy levels in hydrogen atoms, and by the elastic scattering of electrons on protons. In 2010, and then in 2013, two research teams determined rp from the experiment on muonic hydrogen atoms and they claimed rp to be by about 4% smaller than it was found from the experiments with electronic hydrogen atoms. Since then, several research groups performed corresponding experiments with electronic hydrogen atoms and obtained contradictory results: some of them claimed that they found the same value of rp as from the muonic hydrogen experiments, while others reconfirmed the larger value of rp. The conclusion of the latest papers (including reviews) is that the puzzle is not resolved yet. In the present paper, we bring to the attention of the research community, dealing with the proton radius puzzle, the contributing factor never taken into account in any previous calculations. This factor has to do with the hydrogen atoms of the second flavor, whose existence is confirmed in four different types of atomic experiments. We present a relatively simple model illustrating the role of this factor. We showed that disregarding the effect of even a relatively small admixture of the second flavor of muonic hydrogen atoms to the experimental gas of muonic hydrogen atoms could produce the erroneous result that the proton charge radius is by about 4% smaller than its actual value, so that the larger out of the two disputed values of the proton charge radius could be, in fact, correct.