Join us May 4th for our Weekly Physics Colloquium! Guest Speaker, Dr. Martha Constantinou, Assistant Professor, will be joining us from the Department of Physics at Temple University.

 

Title: 

Addressing open questions in nuclear physics from numerical simulations of QCD: The proton mass and spin decompositions.

 

Abstract:

More than 99% of the mass of the visible matter resides in hadrons which are bound states of quarks and gluons, collectively called partons. These are the fundamental constituents of Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD)- the theory of strong interactions. While QCD is a very elegant theory, it is highly non-linear and cannot be solved analytically, posing severe limitations on our knowledge of the structure of the hadrons. Lattice QCD is a powerful first-principle formulation that enables the study of hadrons numerically, which is done by defining the continuous equations on a discrete Euclidean four-dimensional lattice.

Hadron structure is among the frontiers of Nuclear and Particle Physics, with the 2015 Nuclear Science Advisory Committee’s Long Range Plan for Nuclear Physics Identifying a future electron-ion Collider (EIC) as the highest priority for new facility construction. The EIC will be built at Brookhaven National Laboratory and will be operational in the next decade. The NAS report identified three high-priority science questions to understand the hadron structure to address in EIC:

1. How does the mass of the nucleon arise?
2. How does the spin of the nucleon arise?
3. What are the emergent properties of dense systems of gluons?

In this talk, I will discuss progress in Lattice QCD related to aspects of the above questions, with the main focus on the origin of the mass, and the spin decomposition. I will show results for the proton, which provides an ideal system for studying QCD dynamics. I will discuss the strengths of lattice calculations, but also identify the challenges associated with the elimination of systematic uncertainties.

 

Can't make it? Join us on Zoom!

Passcode: 010776