Speaker
Description
The energy levels of muonic atoms are highly sensitive to the nuclear charge distribution, which makes them useful probes of the nuclear charge radius. To extract the rms charge radius from the emitted X-rays, it is common to assume that the charge distribution $\rho(r)$ is given by the 2-parameter Fermi distribution. However, it is acknowledged in the literature that this simplistic assumption leads to a "model-dependence" uncertainty, which had not been properly evaluated. This uncertainty term is usually neglected, which means that the published uncertainties in charge radii are underestimates. We use mathematical optimisation techniques to rigorously calculate the uncertainty in the rms charge radius, by determining the maximum and minimum allowed charge radii, without using a particular model for the charge distribution. By comparing this to the uncertainty when assuming a Fermi distribution, we obtain the model-dependence uncertainty.
| I am the presenting author | Yes |
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