Muonic vs electronic dark forces: a complete EFT treatment for atomic spectroscopy

Abstract

Precision atomic spectroscopy provides a solid model independent bound on the existence of new dark forces among the atomic constituents. We focus on the keV-GeV region investigating the sensitivity to such dark sectors of the recent measurements on muonic atoms at PSI. To this end we develop for the first time, the effective field theory that describes the leading effect of a new (pseudo-)vector or a (pseudo-)scalar particle of any mass at atomic energies. We identify in the Lamb Shift measurement in muonic deuterium ($\mu$D) and the $2s$ Hyperfine Splitting (HFS) in muonic hydrogen ($\mu$H) the most promising measurements to probe respectively spin-independent and spin-dependent new forces. Furthermore, we evaluate the expression of the vector force HFS finding that a future measurement of the $2s$ HFS in regular hydrogen could provide the strongest atomic bound for such a force for masses above 100 MeV.

16 pages plus appendices, 5 figures, 2 tables

References in corpus (8)

• Measurement of the Positive Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment to 0.46 ppm
• Spectroscopy as a test of Coulomb's law - A probe of the hidden sector
• Probing new spin-independent interactions through precision spectroscopy in atoms with few electrons
• The proton radius (puzzle?) and its relatives
• Axions and Axion-Like Particles
• Quantum electrodynamic corrections to the hyperfine structure of excited S states
• Non-relativistic and potential non-relativistic effective field theories for scalar mediators
• Hyperfine splitting in muonic hydrogen constrains new pseudoscalar interactions

Cited by in corpus (10)

• The proton structure in and out of muonic hydrogen
• Spin-dependent exotic interactions
• Self-consistent extraction of spectroscopic bounds on light new physics
• Towards Precision Muonic X-Ray Measurements of Charge Radii of Light Nuclei
• Bound-state formation, dissociation and decays of darkonium with potential non-relativistic Yukawa theory for scalar and pseudoscalar mediators
• Axial-vector exchange contribution to the Hyperfine Splitting
• All-optical Differential Radii in Zinc
• Challenging Beyond-the-Standard-Model Solutions to the Fine-Structure Anomaly in Heavy Muonic Atoms
• Influence of a Perfectly Conducting Plate on the Uehling Potential of QED
• Laser Excitation of Muonic 1S Hydrogen Hyperfine Transition: Effects of Multi-pass Cell Interference