Testing Exotic Electron-Electron Interactions with the Helium Ionization-Energy Anomaly
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| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2026
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| _version_ | 1866908826128613376 |
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| author | Cong, Lei Ficek, Filip Abdullin, Rinat Kozlov, Mikhail G. Budker, Dmitry |
| author_facet | Cong, Lei Ficek, Filip Abdullin, Rinat Kozlov, Mikhail G. Budker, Dmitry |
| contents | Precision atomic spectroscopy provides a sensitive probe of physics beyond the Standard Model. A recently reported $9σ$ theory-experiment discrepancy in the ionization energy of metastable helium has motivated the hypothesis of a new boson mediating exotic electron-electron interactions. Using a model-independent sign-consistency analysis of the induced energy shifts, we show that the sign requirement alone excludes vector-vector and pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar interactions as possible explanations of the anomaly. Incorporating existing constraints together with improved limits obtained here further excludes axial-vector scenarios. Within the single-boson framework considered in this work, only a narrowly constrained scalar-mediated interaction remains viable. The remaining parameter space could be probed, for example, by modest improvements in the determination of the electron gyromagnetic ratio. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_09743 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Testing Exotic Electron-Electron Interactions with the Helium Ionization-Energy Anomaly Cong, Lei Ficek, Filip Abdullin, Rinat Kozlov, Mikhail G. Budker, Dmitry Atomic Physics Precision atomic spectroscopy provides a sensitive probe of physics beyond the Standard Model. A recently reported $9σ$ theory-experiment discrepancy in the ionization energy of metastable helium has motivated the hypothesis of a new boson mediating exotic electron-electron interactions. Using a model-independent sign-consistency analysis of the induced energy shifts, we show that the sign requirement alone excludes vector-vector and pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar interactions as possible explanations of the anomaly. Incorporating existing constraints together with improved limits obtained here further excludes axial-vector scenarios. Within the single-boson framework considered in this work, only a narrowly constrained scalar-mediated interaction remains viable. The remaining parameter space could be probed, for example, by modest improvements in the determination of the electron gyromagnetic ratio. |
| title | Testing Exotic Electron-Electron Interactions with the Helium Ionization-Energy Anomaly |
| topic | Atomic Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.09743 |