RUI: Norfolk State University's Research Participation in GlueX and CLAS12 at Jefferson Lab

构成每个原子核的中子和质子本身又由称为夸克和胶子的组成粒子组成，并通过我们所说的强核力结合在一起。 该奖项支持研究这些物质基本成分之间的强相互作用。更具体地说，它的目的是理解强作用力理论的性质，称为量子色动力学或QCD，在核子形成的能量下，它是最相关的。为此，PI和该奖项支持的学生将在弗吉尼亚州纽波特纽斯的托马斯杰斐逊国家加速器设施（杰斐逊实验室）进行实验。NSU教师和本科生将参与硬件的建设和中能核物理前沿实验数据的分析。诺福克州立大学是历史上领先的黑人学院和大学之一。NSU毕业的非裔美国人物理专业的学生比弗吉尼亚州其他所有大学的总和还要多。该项目的目标之一是加强少数民族大学生参与核物理和粒子物理研究。近年来，QCD（格点QCD）的数值解提供了轻质量介子的质谱。因此，现在是时候改进我们对鲜为人知的轻质量介子谱的实验测定，以与预测进行比较。由于强相互作用的相互作用载体胶子对强相互作用很敏感，因此胶子也可能作为奇异介子（由夸克、反夸克和胶子组成的粒子）在介子谱中被外部观察到。介子光谱学的一个主要问题是：我们能在介子光谱中找到胶子的线索吗？ PI正在分析用杰斐逊实验室大厅B的CEBAF大型接受光谱仪（CLAS）进行的介子光谱实验的数据，以寻找这些线索。他还参与了杰斐逊实验室12 GeV升级的两个新实验，分别名为GSTX和CLAS12。部分波分析（PWA）是用于该分析的技术。第一批PWA结果已经发布，更多的PWA结果正在几个渠道中进行。主要工作是开发和升级振幅和分波分析的新技术。

The neutrons and protons that make up the nucleus of every atom are themselves made up of constituent particles called quarks and gluons, and held together by what we call the strong nuclear force. This award supports research to the study of the strong interactions between those elementary constituents of matter. More specifically, it is aimed at understanding the properties of the theory of the strong force, named Quantum Chromodynamics or QCD, at energies where nucleons are formed and it is most relevant,. To this end, the PI and the students supported by this award will perform experiments at The Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (Jefferson Lab,) in Newport News, VA. NSU faculty and undergraduate students will participate in the construction of hardware and in the analysis of data from experiments in the forefront of intermediate energy nuclear physics. Norfolk State University is one of the leading Historically Black Colleges and Universities. NSU graduates more African-American physics majors than all of the other Virginia universities combined. It is a goal of this project to strengthen the national participation of undergraduate minorities in nuclear and particle physics research.In the recent years, numerical solutions of QCD (Lattice-QCD) have provided with a mass spectrum of light-mass mesons. Therefore, it is time for improving our experimental determination of the poorly known light-mass meson spectrum to compare with predictions. Since the interaction carrier of the strong interaction, the gluon, is sensitive to the strong interaction, it is also possible that gluons can be externally observable in the meson spectrum as exotic mesons (particles made of a quark, an antiquark and a gluon). One main question in meson spectroscopy is: Can we find hints of the gluon in the meson spectrum? The PI is analyzing data from meson spectroscopy experiments performed with the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) in Jefferson Lab's Hall B to search for those hints. He is also involved in two new experiments named GlueX and CLAS12, at the Jefferson Lab 12 GeV upgrade. Partial Wave Analysis (PWA) is the technique used for that analysis. The first PWA results have been published and more PWA results are progressing in several channels. The main work is in developing and upgrading new techniques of amplitude and partial wave analysis.