[PAST EVENT] Physics Colloquium

January 21, 2016
4pm - 5pm
Location
Small Hall, Room 111
300 Ukrop Way
Williamsburg, VA 23185Map this location
Abstract:
Quarks and gluons are believed to be the building blocks of hadrons, the strongly interacting particles of nuclear physics. Making predictions regarding the spectrum of hadrons within Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the field theory that describes quarks and gluons, has long been challenging. One particular mystery within QCD is whether the role of excitations of the gluon field, which is strongly coupled to both itself and to the quarks, can be observed in the excited spectrum of hadrons.

I will present results from numerical calculations of QCD that indicate that exotic objects called hybrid hadrons, in which quarks are partnered with an excitation of the gluon field, are in fact a feature of the hadron spectrum and should be experimentally observable. Recent theoretical advances have allowed production and decay properties of excited hadrons to be calculated, opening up the possibility of providing predictions that offer guidance for current and near-future experimental exotic hadron searches.