Confining Geometries and Quantum Chromodynamics

该奖项为爱荷华州大学的文森特·罗杰斯教授的研究工作提供资金。近五十年来，量子色动力学（QCD）一直是核物质基础物理学的竞争数学理论。 该理论已经证明自己在物质高能的环境中是成功的，例如加速器，但由于理论的性质，在较低能量环境中的预测是棘手的。 弦理论提供了一种巧妙的机制，通过将理论映射到可以“容易”解决的引力理论（或几何）中，在低能环境中解决QCD的某些方面。 这种映射的一个问题是，这些几何是高度限制性的，人们需要新的几何族才能找到对应于QCD的几何族。 在这项工作中，我们利用QCD的许多显著性质来扩展与QCD相关的合适几何家族，并试图确定QCD在低能态的新特征。 在这种状态下理解QCD将提高我们对核物理的理解。 罗杰斯教授有几个研究生，包括国际学生，来自美国的女性，少数民族学生人数不足。 罗杰斯教授是一位非裔美国人，他也非常积极地为爱荷华州及其周边的农村和城市社区开展科学推广活动，并强烈鼓励他的学生也参加推广活动。 罗杰斯教授还教授弦理论和量子场论课程，这项研究将有利于这些课程的课程。

This award funds the research efforts of Professor Vincent Rodgers at the University of Iowa. For nearly fifty years, Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) has been a competing mathematical theory for the underlying physics of nuclear matter. The theory has shown itself to be successful in environments where matter is highly energetic such as accelerators but due to the nature of the theory, predictions in lower energy environments are intractable. String theory provides a clever mechanism for solving some aspects of QCD in low energy environments by mapping the theory into a gravitational theory (or geometries) that can be "easily" solved. One problem with this mapping is that these geometries are highly restrictive and one needs new families of geometries in order to find those that correspond to QCD. In this work, we are using as many of the salient properties of QCD to extend the family of suitable geometries related to QCD and try to determine new features of QCD in its low-energy state. Understanding QCD in such a state will improve our understanding of nuclear physics.This project has several broader impacts. Professor Rodgers has several graduate students, including international students, women from the U.S., and underrepresented minority students. Professor Rodgers, an African American, is also quite active in science outreach for rural and urban communities in and around Iowa, and strongly encourages his students to participate in outreach as well. Prof. Rodgers also teaches courses in string theory and quantum field theory where this research will benefit the curriculum of those courses.