Lattice Gauge Theory at the University of the Pacific

该基金支持太平洋莱迪思小组的研究活动，该小组由太平洋大学的James Hetrick、Kieran Holland和Keisuke Juge教授组成。这个项目涉及粒子物理中的计算场论。这项工作有四个方面，三个涉及强相互作用粒子的理论研究，一个涉及管理科学数据档案门户。第一部分的重点是从基本原理出发，理解量子色动力学中的夸克和胶子是如何产生实验观察到的强子（如质子、中子和其他奇异粒子）的，以及它们的性质和相互作用。这项工作对核物理学有重要意义。该研究计划的第二和第三个分支探索“超越标准模型”的物理模型，特别是研究新发现的希格斯粒子可能是“类夸克”粒子的复合粒子的可能性，甚至是额外维度物理的表现。最后，本研究计划的第四部分是维护一个大型的、公共的、国际上可访问的晶格规范理论数据存储库，允许世界各地的研究人员访问并建立在其他人的工作基础上，从而显著地利用这项工作和其他类似研究人员的投资。这项工作更广泛的意义在于推进我们目前对物质和宇宙的基本成分、结构和相互作用的理解。粒子物理学的标准模型概括了夸克和轻子相互作用的方式，并解释了所有已知的加速器数据。这个模型很像18世纪初化学中的元素周期表：我们有元素周期表和它对元素相互作用的数学描述，但我们不知道为什么这些相互作用会采取这样的形式和结构。在化学中，对元素周期表的更深入理解带来了物理学的下一个层次——量子理论，它解释了为什么原子具有它们所具有的性质和相互作用。在我们对粒子物理学和标准模型的理解上，我们现在正处于一个类似的十字路口，准备突破到对物质结构的下一个层次的理解，而这个研究项目的结果可能是朝着这个方向迈出的一步。另一方面，该项目的数据档案管理组件使用最新的高性能网格技术，使这项工作和世界各地其他研究人员的成果相互可用，大大增加了公众科学投资的回报。

This grant supports the research activities of the Pacific Lattice Group, consisting of Professors James Hetrick, Kieran Holland, and Keisuke Juge at the University of the Pacific.This project concerns computational field theory in particle physics. There are four strands in this work, three involving theoretical study of strongly-interacting particles and one managing a scientific data archive gateway. The thrust of the first strand is to understand from basic principles how a few fundamental building blocks, the quarks and gluons of QCD (Quantum Chromodynamics), generate the experimentally observed hadrons, such as the proton, neutron and other exotic particles, as well their properties and interactions. This work has significant relevance for nuclear physics. The second and third branches of this research program explore models of physics "Beyond the Standard Model", in particular investigating the possibility that the newly discovered Higgs particle might be a composite of "quark-like" particles, or even a manifestation of extra dimensional physics. Finally, the fourth part of this research program is the maintenance of a large, public, internationally accessible repository of lattice gauge theory data, allowing researchers around the world to access and build on the work of others, thereby significantly leveraging the investment in this work and that of other similar researchers.The broader significance of this work is to advance our current understanding of the fundamental constituents, structure, and interactions of matter and the universe. The Standard Model of particle physics encapsulates the way that quarks and leptons interact, and explains all known accelerator data. This Model is much like the Periodic Table in chemistry at the turn of the 18th century: we have the table and its mathematical description of the interactions of its constituents, but we have no understanding of why the interactions take the form and structure that they do. In chemistry, the deeper understanding of the Periodic Table came with the next level of physics --- quantum theory, explaining why atoms have the properties and interactions that they do. We are at a similar crossroads now in our understanding of particle physics and the Standard Model, poised to break through to the next level of understanding of the structure of matter, and the results of this research project might potentially be one step in that direction. On the other hand, the data archive management component of this project uses the latest high-performance grid technologies to make the results of this work and other researchers around the world available to each other, greatly multiplying the return on the scientific investment made by the public.