W&M Featured Events
[PAST EVENT] Physics Colloquium
Abstract:
The proton and neutron, known as nucleons, are the fundamental building blocks of all atomic nuclei and make up essentially all the visible matter in the universe, including the stars, the planets, and us. The nucleon is not static but has a complex internal structure, the dynamics of which are only beginning to be revealed in modern experiments. The nucleon emerges as a strongly interacting, relativistic bound state of quarks and gluons in Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), the theory of the strong force. In this talk, I will demonstrate that the proposed Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) with its unique capability to collide polarized electrons with polarized protons and light ions at unprecedented luminosity, and with heavy nuclei at high energy, will be the most powerful tomographic scanner able to precisely image quarks and gluons inside the proton and nuclei. This precision microscope will allow us to ?see? and explore the dynamics binding quarks and gluons together to form hadrons. The EIC will address the most compelling unanswered questions in QCD and hadron physics, and take us to the next QCD frontier.
REFERENCE: A. Accardi et al., ?Electron Ion Collider: The Next QCD Frontier - Understanding the glue that binds us all,? Eur. Phys. J. A52, 268 (2016) [arXiv:1212.1701 [nucl-ex]]