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Direct high-precision measurement of the magnetic moment of the proton

Nature volume 509, pages 596–599 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

One of the fundamental properties of the proton is its magnetic moment, µp. So far µp has been measured only indirectly, by analysing the spectrum of an atomic hydrogen maser in a magnetic field1. Here we report the direct high-precision measurement of the magnetic moment of a single proton using the double Penning-trap technique2. We drive proton-spin quantum jumps by a magnetic radio-frequency field in a Penning trap with a homogeneous magnetic field. The induced spin transitions are detected in a second trap with a strong superimposed magnetic inhomogeneity3. This enables the measurement of the spin-flip probability as a function of the drive frequency. In each measurement the proton’s cyclotron frequency is used to determine the magnetic field of the trap. From the normalized resonance curve, we extract the particle’s magnetic moment in terms of the nuclear magneton: μp = 2.792847350(9)μN. This measurement outperforms previous Penning-trap measurements4,5 in terms of precision by a factor of about 760. It improves the precision of the forty-year-old indirect measurement, in which significant theoretical bound state corrections6 were required to obtain µp, by a factor of 3. By application of this method to the antiproton magnetic moment, the fractional precision of the recently reported value7 can be improved by a factor of at least 1,000. Combined with the present result, this will provide a stringent test of matter/antimatter symmetry with baryons8.

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Figure 1: Relative precision achieved in measurements of the proton magnetic moment.
Figure 2: Experimental setup and measurement procedures.
Figure 3: Measured g-factor resonance.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the financial support of the BMBF, and of the EU (ERC grant number 290870-MEFUCO), the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft, HGS-HIRE, the Max-Planck Society, IMPRS-PTFS, and the RIKEN Initiative Research Unit Program.

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Author notes

  1. A. Mooser

    Present address: Present address: RIKEN, Ulmer Initiative Research Unit, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut für Physik, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany,

    A. Mooser, H. Kracke, C. Leiteritz, C. C. Rodegheri & J. Walz

  2. Helmholtz-Institut Mainz, 55099 Mainz, Germany,

    A. Mooser, H. Kracke & J. Walz

  3. RIKEN, Ulmer Initiative Research Unit, Wako, Saitama 351-0198, Japan,

    S. Ulmer, K. Franke & C. Smorra

  4. Max-Planck-Institut für Kernphysik, 69117 Heidelberg, Germany,

    K. Blaum, K. Franke & C. C. Rodegheri

  5. Fakultät für Physik und Astronomie, Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, 69047 Heidelberg, Germany,

    W. Quint

  6. GSI—Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung, 64291 Darmstadt, Germany,

    W. Quint

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Contributions

S.U., C.C.R., H.K., A.M. and C.L. designed and built the experimental apparatus and the data acquisition system. A.M., C.L. and S.U. took part in the months-long data-taking runs. K.F. and A.M. developed the algorithms for the spin state analysis. A.M., K.F., S.U., C.L. and H.K. analysed the data. S.U., A.M., K.B. and J.W. wrote the initial manuscript, which was then improved and approved by all authors.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to A. Mooser.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Mooser, A., Ulmer, S., Blaum, K. et al. Direct high-precision measurement of the magnetic moment of the proton. Nature 509, 596–599 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13388

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