The muon anomalous magnetic moment exhibits a long-standing discrepancy between theory and experiment. The dominant source of uncertainty in the theoretical calculation arises from the leading-order hadronic contribution (a_HLO), traditionally evaluated using a data-driven dispersive approach. Currently, there are tensions among various data-driven evaluations, and most are also in conflict with calculations based on lattice QCD. This situation highlights the need for an independent crosscheck to better understand these tensions.
The MUonE experiment offers a novel method to determine a_HLO by measuring the running of the electromagnetic coupling constant via muon-electron elastic scattering in the space-like region. The measurement will be performed using a 160 GeV muon beam at CERN. This talk will discuss the experimental concept, the development of hardware and software components, and the analysis strategy, with insights gained from recent test runs.