The Proton Radius from Electron Scattering Data

In an attempt to understand the discrepancy between the proton radius determined the muonic hydrogen Lamb shift and elastic electron-proton scattering measurements, we carefully review two classic, high precision electron scattering charge form factor, ${G_E}$, results. Upon examination, it was noted that the covariance matrices of common three parameter fits show large parameter correlations. Thus, we reanalyzed the classic data guided by statistical constraints and found low $q^2$, two-parameter fits were actually consistent with muonic hydrogen results. By subsequently including the highest measured values of ${G_E}(q^2)$ in the fits, we found that a dipole function, $G_E(q^2) = ( 1 + q^2/0.66[\rm{GeV}^2])^{-2}$, with the muonic hydrogen radius, 0.84087(39) fm, not only describes the low $q^2$ electron scattering data, but also describes the highest measured $q^2$ $G_E$ values.