Charge conservation elementary charge on positive and negative particles must be extremely close to equal, differing by no more than a factor of 10 for the case of protons and electrons. Ordinary matter contains equal numbers of positive and negative particles, protons and electrons, in enormous quantities. If the elementary charge on the electron and proton were even slightly different, all matter would have a large electric charge and would be mutually repulsive. The best experimental tests of electric charge conservation are searches for particle decays that would be allowed if electric charge is not always conserved. No such decays have ever
Charge radius This asymmetric distribution of charge within the particle gives rise to a small negative squared charge radius for the particle as a whole. But, this is only the simplest of a variety of theoretical models, some of which are more elaborate, that are used to explain this property of a neutron. For deuterons and higher nuclei, it is conventional to distinguish between the scattering charge radius, "r" (obtained from scattering data), and the bound-state charge radius, "R", which includes the Darwin–Foldy term to account for the behaviour of the anomalous magnetic moment in an electromagnetic field and which is appropriate