The muon

The muon anomalous magnetic moment is one of the most precisely measured quantities in particle physics. In a recent experiment at Brookhaven it has been measured with a remarkable 14-fold improvement of the previous CERN experiment reaching a precision of 0.54 ppm. Since the first results were published, a persistent “discrepancy” between theory and experiment of about 3 standard deviations is observed. It is the largest “established” deviation from the Standard Model seen in a “clean” electroweak observable and thus could be a hint for New Physics to be around the corner. This deviation triggered numerous speculations about the possible origin of the “missing piece” and the increased experimental precision animated a multitude of new theoretical efforts which lead to a substantial improvement of the prediction of the muon anomaly a μ = ( g μ − 2 ) / 2 . The dominating uncertainty of the prediction, caused by strong interaction effects, could be reduced substantially, due to new hadronic cross section measurements in electron-positron annihilation at low energies. Also the recent electron g − 2 measurement at Harvard contributes substantially to progress in this field, as it allows for a much more precise determination of the fine structure constant α as well as a cross check of the status of our theoretical understanding. s report we review the theory of the anomalous magnetic moments of the electron and the muon. After an introduction and a brief description of the principle of the muon g − 2 experiment, we present a review of the status of the theoretical prediction and in particular discuss the role of the hadronic vacuum polarization effects and the hadronic light-by-light scattering correction, including a new evaluation of the dominant pion-exchange contribution. In the end, we find a 3.2 standard deviation discrepancy between experiment and Standard Model prediction. We also present a number of examples of how extensions of the electroweak Standard Model would change the theoretical prediction of the muon anomaly a μ . Perspectives for future developments in experiment and theory are briefly discussed and critically assessed. The muon g − 2 will remain one of the hot topics for further investigations.