Proton-to-electron mass ratio

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In physics, the proton-to-electron mass ratio, μ or β, is simply the rest mass of the proton divided by that of the electron. Because this ratio is a dimensionless quantity, its numerical value is the same in all systems of units, namely:

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The number enclosed in parentheses is the standard error. μ is known to a little better than 1 part in 5 billion.

Discussion

μ is a fundamental physical constant because:

• Nearly all of science deals with baryonic matter and how the fundamental interactions affect such matter. Baryonic matter consists of protons, electrons, and neutrons. Free neutrons have a half life of 886 seconds. Electrons and protons appear to be stable, to the best of current knowledge. (Theories of proton decay predict that the proton has a half life on the order of at least 10³² years. To date, there is no experimental evidence of proton decay.);
• The proton is the most important baryon, while the electron is the most important lepton;
• μ and the fine structure constant α are the two dimensionless quantities emerging in elementary physics, and two of the three dimensionless quantities discussed in Barrow (2002);
• The proton mass m_p is composed primarily of gluons, and not of the quarks (the up quark and down quark) making up the proton. Hence m_p, and therefore the ratio μ, are easily measurable consequences of the strong force. In fact, in the chiral limit, m_p is proportional to the QCD energy scale, Λ_QCD. At a given energy scale, the strong coupling constant α_s is related to the QCD scale (and thus μ) as

where β₀ = -11 + 2n/3, with n being the number of quark flavors.

Does μ vary over time?

Astrophysicists have tried to find evidence that has changed over the history of the universe. (The same question has also been asked of the fine structure constant.) One interesting cause of such change would be change over time in the strength of the strong force.

Astronomical searches for time-varying have typically examined the Lyman and Werner transitions of molecular hydrogen which, given a sufficiently large redshift, occur in the optical region and so can be observed with ground-based spectrographs.

If were to change, then the change in the wavelength of each rest frame wavelength can be parameterised as:

where is the proportional change in , and is a constant which must be calculated within a theoretical (or semi-empirical) framework.

Reinhold et al. (2006) reported a potential 4 standard deviation variation in by analysing the molecular hydrogen absorption spectra of quasars Q0405-443 and Q0347-373. They found that King et al. (2008) reanalysed the spectral data of Reinhold et al. and collected new data on another quasar, Q0528-250. They estimated that , which is inconsistent with the estimates of Reinhold et al. (2006) and implies that does not change over time.

Murphy et al. (2008) used the inversion transition of ammonia to conclude that at z=0.68.

Note that any comparison between values of Δμ / μ at substantially different redshifts will need a particular model to govern the evolution of Δμ / μ. That is, results consistent with zero change at low redshifts do not rule out significant change at high redshifts.

See also

• Dimensionless physical constant
• Electron
• Fine structure constant
• Proton
• Quark
• QCD

Footnotes

References

• Barrow, John D., 2002. The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega--the Numbers That Encode the Deepest Secrets of the Universe. London: Vintage. ISBN 0-09-928647-5.
• -------- and Frank J. Tipler, 1986. The Cosmological Anthropic Principle. Oxford Univ. Press.
• Reinhold. E., Buning, R., Hollenstein, U., Ivanchik, A., Petitjean, P., Ubachs, W., 2006, "Indication of a Cosmological Variation of the Proton-Electron Mass Ratio based on Laboratory Measurement and Reanalysis of H2 spectra," Physical Review Letters 96(15): 151101.
• King, J., Webb, J., Murphy, M., Carswell, R., 2008, "arXiv:0807.4366 Stringent Null Constraint on Cosmological Evolution of the Proton-to-Electron Mass Ratio," Physical Review Letters 101: 251304.
• Murphy, M., Flambaum, V., Muller, S., Henkel, C., 2008, "Strong Limit on a Variable Proton-to-Electron Mass Ratio from Molecules in the Distant Universe", Science 320 1611-