Probing a Fifth Force in Muonic Atoms through Lamb Shifts and Hyperfine Structure
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| Autores principales: | , , , |
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| Formato: | Preprint |
| Publicado: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866917305405931520 |
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| author | Lin, Xiaoxuan Wu, Qian Kou, Wei Chen, Xurong |
| author_facet | Lin, Xiaoxuan Wu, Qian Kou, Wei Chen, Xurong |
| contents | Motivated by the ATOMKI anomalies in 8Be and 4He transitions, we study X17-induced Lamb shifts and hyperfine splittings in muonic atoms with stable nuclei up to Z <= 15. The bound-state problem is solved within the Gaussian Expansion Method using a unified Hamiltonian that includes the standard electromagnetic baseline together with vector and pseudoscalar X17 exchange. The spin-independent Lamb shift is described by a coherent vector muon-nucleus interaction, while the spin-dependent hyperfine sector is built isotope by isotope from shell-model spin fractions. We find a clear complementarity between mediator hypotheses: the vector Lamb-shift signal grows toward heavier nuclei, the vector hyperfine scenario favors odd-N nuclei, and the pseudoscalar scenario favors odd-Z nuclei. Using a signal-to-precision ratio, we identify muonic deuterium, muonic helium-3 ion, and muonic helium-4 ion as the most promising near-term Lamb-shift probes among systems with existing precision benchmarks. For future spectroscopy, the largest vector Lamb-shift signal is predicted in muonic silicon-29, while the leading 1S hyperfine targets are silicon-29 for the vector scenario and phosphorus-31 for the pseudoscalar scenario. The main theoretical uncertainty comes from the Schmidt-model treatment of nuclear spin content. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_01429 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Probing a Fifth Force in Muonic Atoms through Lamb Shifts and Hyperfine Structure Lin, Xiaoxuan Wu, Qian Kou, Wei Chen, Xurong Atomic Physics Nuclear Experiment Nuclear Theory Motivated by the ATOMKI anomalies in 8Be and 4He transitions, we study X17-induced Lamb shifts and hyperfine splittings in muonic atoms with stable nuclei up to Z <= 15. The bound-state problem is solved within the Gaussian Expansion Method using a unified Hamiltonian that includes the standard electromagnetic baseline together with vector and pseudoscalar X17 exchange. The spin-independent Lamb shift is described by a coherent vector muon-nucleus interaction, while the spin-dependent hyperfine sector is built isotope by isotope from shell-model spin fractions. We find a clear complementarity between mediator hypotheses: the vector Lamb-shift signal grows toward heavier nuclei, the vector hyperfine scenario favors odd-N nuclei, and the pseudoscalar scenario favors odd-Z nuclei. Using a signal-to-precision ratio, we identify muonic deuterium, muonic helium-3 ion, and muonic helium-4 ion as the most promising near-term Lamb-shift probes among systems with existing precision benchmarks. For future spectroscopy, the largest vector Lamb-shift signal is predicted in muonic silicon-29, while the leading 1S hyperfine targets are silicon-29 for the vector scenario and phosphorus-31 for the pseudoscalar scenario. The main theoretical uncertainty comes from the Schmidt-model treatment of nuclear spin content. |
| title | Probing a Fifth Force in Muonic Atoms through Lamb Shifts and Hyperfine Structure |
| topic | Atomic Physics Nuclear Experiment Nuclear Theory |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.01429 |