Protons May Be Smaller Than Thought Upsetting Theory
This article is for subscribers only.
The proton, a building block of matter, appears to be smaller than previously thought, according to researchers who say the finding may open new questions about how sub-atomic particles interact.
A team led by Aldo Antognini, a physicist at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics in Zurich, used laser spectroscopy to study the proton’s charge radius in a hydrogen atom that had been reconstituted to allow a clearer look. They found the radius differed by about 4 percent from previous measurements, according to a report in the journal Science.