5–8 Oct 2026
Institute for Quantum Physics
Europe/Berlin timezone

Probing the Standard Model with Atomic Deuterium

7 Oct 2026, 10:30
15m
Institute for Quantum Physics

Institute for Quantum Physics

Luruper Chaussee 149

Speaker

Sudhir Suresh Babu (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics)

Description

Probing the Standard Model with Atomic Deuterium

Hydrogen-like systems have a unique advantage for probing bound-state QED, as their energies can be computed from first principles. By comparing the transition frequencies of various energy levels, one can test the consistency of QED and also extract fundamental quantities, such as the Rydberg constant and nuclear radii, that are not accessible by other experiments to such high precision. This is particularly interesting due to the “Deuteron Radius Puzzle” and “Proton Radius Puzzle” where the nuclear radii extracted from the measured Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen [1] and deuterium [2] were discrepant from that of their electronic counterpart by more than 3σ. Although one could say that the Proton radius puzzle is resolved, as the recent electronic hydrogen measurement agrees with the muonic hydrogen data [3, 4], the deuteron radius puzzle remains, as there have been no recent measurements in electronic deuterium. Here, we present the working of our hydrogen/deuterium spectrometer used to measure the dipole-allowed 2s-6p transition frequency in atomic deuterium, highlighting key differences from our 2s-6p measurement in atomic hydrogen [4], and present a preliminary analysis from our ongoing measurement campaign.

  1. R. Pohl et al. , Nature 466: 213-216, 2010
  2. R. Pohl et al. , Science 353(6300) : 669-673, 2016
  3. A. Beyer et al., Science 358(6359):79-85, 2017
  4. L. Maisenbacher et al., Nature 650:845-851, 2026

Author

Sudhir Suresh Babu (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics)

Co-authors

Dr Alexander Wilzewski (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) Dr Derya Taray (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) Dr Omer Amit (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) Prof. Randolf Pohl (Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz) Prof. Theodor Hänsch (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) Prof. Thomas Udem (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) Mr Vincent Weis (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics) Dr Vitaly Wirthl (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics)

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