Why Are Electrons Considered Point Particles in Magnetic Moment Studies?

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SUMMARY

Electrons are considered point particles in magnetic moment studies due to the lack of experimental evidence indicating their structure or finite size. High-energy scattering experiments, such as those conducted at the Large Electron-Positron Collider (LEP), have established upper limits on the electron's size, specifically around 10-19 meters. This upper limit suggests that if electrons possess a size, it must be smaller than this threshold, as no evidence has been found to confirm otherwise. The concept of the magnetic moment of a point charge remains a topic of discussion, but current data supports the point particle model.

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sudabe
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why we take electrons as point particles? just because of its magnetic moment?
maybe there is something wrong with the idea of the magnetic moment of a point charge.
i appreciate if you help.
 
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So far, we have no experimental evidence (from high-energy scattering experiments, for example) that electrons have structure or a finite size. All we can do so far is find upper limits on the size of an electron.

For example, see http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0002172 which uses an experiment at LEP to set an upper limit of about [itex]10^{-19}[/itex] m for the electron radius. (That doesn't mean that they actually found such a size, it just means that if the electron has a size, it must be smaller than that or else they would have "seen" it.)
 
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