Arts & Sciences Events
[PAST EVENT] Physics Colloquium - Florian Hauenstein
Florian Hauenstein, Old Dominion University, Title of Talk: Pairing and Bonding of Nucleons in Nuclei
Abstract: Protons and neutrons, known as nucleons, are bound together to make the nuclei of all atoms. The usual and simple picture of this binding is an "effective" or average interaction of one nucleon with all the other nucleons. This picture successfully describes most scattering experiments where a projectile is scattered by a nucleus to reveal its inner structure. However, at short distances this simple effective interaction is not the full picture. Indeed, some of the nucleons like to be paired together for a short time at short range, like dancing partners during one song at a party. We call these pairs "Short Range Correlations" (SRC) and they are being intensively investigated. These pairs play a crucial role for a full understanding of the nucleus at short distances and in extreme conditions such as neutron stars. Furthermore, nucleons in these SRC pairs appear to have significantly different quark structure than free nucleons. In my talk, I will present our current picture of nuclei and the SRC pairs within.