2S state and Lamb shift in muonic hydrogen

Abstract

The metastable 2S state in muonic hydrogen is particularily interesting because a measurement of the Lamb shift could reduce the uncertainty in the proton charge radius by an order of magnitude. The most important prerequisite for such a measurement is a sufficiently large population and lifetime of the 2S state. We have determined the long-lived and short-lived 2S population, the deexcitation mechanisms and lifetimes, and the cascade time in μp. © The Author(s) 2009.