W&M Featured Events
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William & Mary
[PAST EVENT] Physics Colloquium - Stevens
March 2, 2016
4pm - 5pm
Abstract:
The quark model has been remarkably successful in classifying the observed spectrum of bound states composed of quarks and gluons, consisting of simple quark-antiquark pairs (mesons) and collections of three quark (baryons). The underlying theory of quark and gluon interactions, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), however, allows much more complex configurations, and first principles QCD calculations have recently predicted a rich spectrum of mesons containing an excited gluonic field in their wave functions. The observation of these new states, known as hybrid mesons, would provide key insight into how the gluonic degrees of freedom manifest themselves in the bound states we observe in nature. The GlueX experiment at Jefferson Lab is designed to search for and study the pattern of gluonic excitations in the meson spectrum using a high energy, polarized photon beam. In this talk the status of the GlueX experiment will be presented, including results from recent commissioning data and planned upgrades to enhance the search for hybrid mesons.
The quark model has been remarkably successful in classifying the observed spectrum of bound states composed of quarks and gluons, consisting of simple quark-antiquark pairs (mesons) and collections of three quark (baryons). The underlying theory of quark and gluon interactions, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), however, allows much more complex configurations, and first principles QCD calculations have recently predicted a rich spectrum of mesons containing an excited gluonic field in their wave functions. The observation of these new states, known as hybrid mesons, would provide key insight into how the gluonic degrees of freedom manifest themselves in the bound states we observe in nature. The GlueX experiment at Jefferson Lab is designed to search for and study the pattern of gluonic excitations in the meson spectrum using a high energy, polarized photon beam. In this talk the status of the GlueX experiment will be presented, including results from recent commissioning data and planned upgrades to enhance the search for hybrid mesons.