RUI: Studies of Hadron Structure and Interactions

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The proposed research will study fundamental questions in theoretical nuclear physics related to the structure of hadrons and their interactions. It will focus on three areas of contemporary theoretical and experimental interest: parton distributions in hadrons, strangeness production in antiproton-proton interactions, and the renormalization of singular potentials. Parton distributions in hadrons will be calculated using a meson cloud model to include hadronic degrees of freedom, supplemented by a statistical model which includes quark and gluon processes. This project will address one of the outstanding challenges to theory posed by recent experiment, the excess of ubar over dbar quarks in the proton for large values of x, measured by E866 at FermiLab. High precision calculations of strangeness production in pbar-p reactions will be made. These calculations will be tested by the recently published spin transfer measurements of PS185 at CERN, which disagree with all theoretical predictions. The regularization and limit cycle behavior of singular potentials will be studied. Prior work will be extended to higher energy and higher partial waves. This work is relevant for effective field theory and has applications in a broad spectrum of physics, from Efimov states to cold atom scattering.Broader impacts of the project derive from its integration of research and education in an undergraduate institution which has a diverse student population. Student research assistants will be recruited from a department which has a high percentage of women physics majors. The project will provide on-campus research experience that increases the number of pathways to the Ph.D. that are offered to groups currently underrepresented in the physics community. The research topics have been chosen so that they are accessible to undergraduates. Students will receive training in research methods and scientific communication and will present their work in papers, posters and talks at meetings of professional societies. In addition to the presentation of research findings in journal articles and at scientific meetings, the P.I. will give seminars and colloquia at other undergraduate institutions.