Events

December 1, 2015 at 3:30 pm

Physics Colloquium | Structure of the Nucleon and QCD: A Promising Horizon, Dec. 4

Zein-Eddine Meziani

Zein-Eddine Meziani

The Physics & Astronomy Colloquium Series presents Zein-Eddine Meziani of Temple University on “Structure of the Nucleon and QCD:  A Promising Horizon” on Friday, Dec. 4, at 4:10 p.m. in Walter 245.

Abstract: Over the past 50 years, a wealth of information critical to our understanding of subatomic matter was obtained by probing the electromagnetic and spin structure of nucleon through lepton (electron) scattering. The first direct observation that protons are not elementary objects and the discovery that their constituents, dubbed “partons”, are point-like particles made use of elastic and deep-inelastic (DIS) scattering of electrons off protons, respectively. With the advent of quantum chromodynamics (QCD), the modern theory of strong interactions partons were identified as quarks and gluons and an intensive theoretical effort is still underway to grasp the full consequences of this theory.

More recently, scattering experiments at Jefferson Lab using a 6 GeV polarized electron beam and polarized targets at high luminosity have allowed us to delve deeper into the nucleon structure with a focus on the role of light quarks and their dynamics in more than one dimension in the valence quark region. The counter-part  experiments planned at the 12 GeV upgrade are offering the promise of a full three dimensional information on the nucleon structure in momentum and position helping unravel the rich but elusive structure of the building blocks of matter  impacting our understanding of the non-perturbative aspects of QCD.

In the quest to complete our picture of nucleon structure and a full grasp of QCD a future Electron Ion Collider (EIC) has been endorsed recently by the Long Range Plan of Nuclear Physics in the U.S. and will focus on the silent gluons as well as sea quarks, in providing for mass, spin and confinement properties of the nucleon together with the valence quarks.

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