Study of Electromagnetic Structure of Light Pseudoscalar Mesons via the Primakoff Effect

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This proposal requests funds to support the North Carolina A&TExperimental Nuclear Physics groups students and senior personnel towork on the PrimEx experiment. Our group is currently playing a leadingrole in the PrimEx collaboration to develop and construct astate-of-the-art experimental setup, to perform a precise measurement ofthe neutral pion lifetime at Jefferson Laboratory (JLab). Because theneutral pions are the lightest two quark system in nature, theprediction of theory is the most accurate and direct for this process. The present experimental knowledge of this decay rate is at the 10%level, which is about one order of magnitude poorer than the theoreticaluncertainties. The PrimEx experiment at JLab, will significantly improvethe experimental uncertainties associated with all the pastexperiments. This work will involve three undergraduate and three graduate studentsto work and to be trained on this project. It will provide them withunique research opportunities in experimental nuclear physics, andtherefore will have a strong impact on their training and education. The program is highly interdisciplinary and includes work with bothhardware and software (i.e., electronics, nuclear detector systems,computer simulation, and data analysis). It will allow them to work ina state-of-the-art facility and interact with scientists from othernationally recognized universities. Thus, it can be very effective inattracting African Americans and other underrepresented groups to studytoward advanced degrees in physics.