FROM QUARKS TO NUCLEI
S.L. Bültmann (Principal Investigator),
M. Amaryan, G.E. Dodge, C.E. Hyde, S.E. Kuhn, and L.B. Weinstein (Co-Investigators)
Department of Physics, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia
This grant will support the research program of the experimental nuclear physics group at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. The ODU group will primarily use facilities at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab) in Newport News, Virginia, to study the quark-gluon structure of strongly interacting particles (protons, neutrons, and light mesons) and how this structure is modified in the nucleus. Experiments at Jefferson Lab and elsewhere will map out the momentum- and spin-distributions of quarks inside the proton and neutron, including novel three-dimensional distributions, which are accessed using new techniques developed in part at ODU. Together with studies of the bound states and decays of quark-antiquark pairs (mesons) and the short-range structure of nuclei, the results of these experiments will sharpen our understanding how the visible world emerges from the fundamental strong interaction, QCD.
The group is participating in a Jefferson Lab search for new, "dark" forces that could help account for the large fraction of currently unobserved dark matter in the Universe via the Heavy Photon Search experiment.
Lastly, we have a strong engagement with the new Electron Ion Collider detector to be built at Brookhaven National Lab. We participate in several existing and proposed detector R&D projects, both project-specific for ePIC and generic.
