3D Partonic Structure of Hadrons

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This project will contribute to study of the internal structure of hadrons, fundamental building blocks of matter that include protons, neutrons, and other subatomic particles. Important insights in the internal structure of hadrons are gained from experimental studies of high-energy processes carried out at leading experimental facilities in the USA, such as the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility and the Brookhaven National Laboratory, and other facilities world-wide. The PI and his collaborators will be developing theoretical and phenomenological tools to provide theoretical support to those experimental science programs and help extract the 3-dimensional structure of protons, neutrons, and atomic nuclei in terms of quarks and gluons, their constituents. This project will provide excellent training opportunities for a new generation of nuclear physicists, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and undergraduate students. This project will also support outreach activities, such as public lectures to engage with the general public, share the excitement of nuclear physics, and disseminate the latest results in nuclear and particle physics. Depending on the specific reaction being studied, the internal structure of hadrons is characterized in complementary ways in terms of various functions including: parton distribution functions, generalized parton distributions, transverse momentum dependent distributions, and generalized transverse momentum dependent distributions. In this project the PI, together with his postdoc and students, will study this set of complementary functions with the objective of exploring so far unknown hadronic properties including spin-orbit correlations of partons, the 3-dimensional imaging or the mapping of strong forces exerted on partons inside a hadron. This research will provide new insights on the theoretical and phenomenological properties of these functions and advance the current knowledge of the hadronic structure. This research will provide support to experiments conducted or in preparation at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, and the planned future Electron-Ion Collider.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.