Precision electroweak shift of muonium hyperfine splitting

Abstract

Electroweak second order shifts of muonium ($\mu^+e^-$ bound state) energy levels are calculated for the first time. Calculation starts from on-shell one-loop elastic $\mu^+ e^-$ scattering amplitudes in the center of mass frame, proceed to renormalization and to derivation of muonium matrix elements by using the momentum space wave functions. This is a reliable method unlike the unjustified four-Fermi approximation in the literature. Corrections of order $\alpha G_F$ (with $\alpha \sim 1/137$ the fine structure constant and $G_F$ the Fermi constant) and of order $\alpha G_F /(m_Z a_B)$ (with $m_Z$ the Z boson mass and $a_B$ the Bohr radius) are derived from three classes of Feynman diagrams, Z self-energy, vertex and box diagrams. The ground state muonium hyperfine splitting is given in terms of the only experimentally unknown parameter, the smallest neutrino mass. It is however found that the neutrino mass dependence is very weak, making its detection difficult.