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[PAST EVENT] Physics Colloquium
February 13, 2015
4pm - 5pm
Abstract:
Over the past decades physicists have made dramatic progress in understanding matter in terms of its fundamental constituents and their interactions. We now think of nucleons as being made of quarks and gluons held together by the strong force. Tremendous experimental and theoretical efforts around the world lead to the emergence of a fairly viable model that describes the nucleon structure and its dynamics in terms of quark and gluon distribution functions (PDFs) and their evolution. Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) became the theory of strong interactions. However, fully understanding the dynamical makeup of free nucleons remains still a challenge. In this talk I will emphasize ongoing theoretical and experimental efforts to extend the PDF-based description of the nucleon structure into the non-perturbative regime and to understand the phenomenon of quark-hadron duality which could become a powerful tool to probe confinement. I will also highlight plans for an upcoming experiment at Jefferson Laboratory set to answer in the most precise manner to date the fundamental question of whether the nucleon separated structure functions are modified differently by the nuclear medium. This experiment will also yield high-precision measurements for the extraction of nuclear patron distribution functions.
Over the past decades physicists have made dramatic progress in understanding matter in terms of its fundamental constituents and their interactions. We now think of nucleons as being made of quarks and gluons held together by the strong force. Tremendous experimental and theoretical efforts around the world lead to the emergence of a fairly viable model that describes the nucleon structure and its dynamics in terms of quark and gluon distribution functions (PDFs) and their evolution. Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) became the theory of strong interactions. However, fully understanding the dynamical makeup of free nucleons remains still a challenge. In this talk I will emphasize ongoing theoretical and experimental efforts to extend the PDF-based description of the nucleon structure into the non-perturbative regime and to understand the phenomenon of quark-hadron duality which could become a powerful tool to probe confinement. I will also highlight plans for an upcoming experiment at Jefferson Laboratory set to answer in the most precise manner to date the fundamental question of whether the nucleon separated structure functions are modified differently by the nuclear medium. This experiment will also yield high-precision measurements for the extraction of nuclear patron distribution functions.