New determination of the electron's mass.

2001

A new independent value for the electron's mass in units of the atomic mass unit is presented, ${m}_{e}\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}=\phantom{\rule{0ex}{0ex}}0.0005485799092(4)\mathrm{u}$. The value is obtained from our recent measurement of the $g$ factor of the electron in ${}^{12}{\mathrm{C}}^{5+}$ in combination with the most recent quantum electrodynamical (QED) predictions. In the QED corrections, terms of order ${\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{2}$ were included by a perturbation expansion in $Z\ensuremath{\alpha}$. Our total precision is three times better than that of the accepted value for the electron's mass.