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Award Abstract # 1714133
Studies of the Structure of Light Mesons and Nucleons through Exclusive Reactions

NSF Org: PHY
Division Of Physics
Recipient: CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA (THE)
Initial Amendment Date: July 5, 2017
Latest Amendment Date: August 23, 2018
Award Number: 1714133
Award Instrument: Continuing Grant
Program Manager: Allena K. Opper
aopper@nsf.gov  (703)292-8958
PHY  Division Of Physics
MPS  Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Start Date: August 1, 2017
End Date: July 31, 2021 (Estimated)
Total Intended Award Amount: $447,998.00
Total Awarded Amount to Date: $453,398.00
Funds Obligated to Date: FY 2017 = $159,996.00
FY 2018 = $293,402.00
History of Investigator:
  • Tanja Horn (Principal Investigator)
     hornt@cua.edu
Recipient Sponsored Research Office: Catholic University of America
 620 MICHIGAN AVE NE
 WASHINGTON
 DC  US  20064-0001
(202)635-5000
Sponsor Congressional District: 00
Primary Place of Performance: Catholic University of America
 DC  US  20064-0001
Primary Place of Performance
Congressional District:		 00
Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): C31ES3WEAVQ5
Parent UEI:
NSF Program(s): Nuclear & Hadron Quantum Chrom
Primary Program Source: 01001718DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
01001819DB NSF RESEARCH & RELATED ACTIVIT
Program Reference Code(s): 9251
Program Element Code(s): 123200
Award Agency Code: 4900
Fund Agency Code: 4900
Assistance Listing Number(s): 47.049

ABSTRACT

Pions and kaons are the lightest subatomic particles and play a unique role in nature; our understanding of them is essential for explaining the fundamental structure of matter. This research is centered on precision measurements of pion and kaon properties that have the potential to reveal the three-dimensional structure of the nucleons, the protons and neutrons that, together with their interactions, generate nearly of the mass of the visible universe. As such, this work probes the fundamental structure of that part of the universe that we can see. This project is part of a series of experiments taking place at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory. Early career scientists, graduate students, and undergraduate students play an integral part in this project, which provides them with opportunities to further develop their training and education. These include gaining experience in the design, assembly, and testing of modern instrumentation for the detection of radiation and subatomic particles and fast signal processing electronics, and in analyzing scientific data. Furthermore, learning to work in a large international scientific community will prepare early career scientists and students for the modern work environment at academic institutions, national laboratories, and industry.

This program is focused on precision measurements of pion and kaon form factors and structure functions, and validation of our understanding of hard exclusive and semi-inclusive reactions towards 3D hadron imaging and potential future flavor decomposition. Form factors are the most basic quantity towards understanding transverse spatial structure. The structure functions are expected to be different for pions, kaons, and nucleons regarding sea quarks and gluons and provide basic information about the origin of mass. 3D hadron imaging allows for the extraction of correlations between quark longitudinal momentum and transverse position from the experiment using factorization theorems. To validate the meson factorization theorems and potential future flavor decomposition, one has to measure the longitudinal and transverse (L/T) separated cross sections. This project plays a central role in this effort through precision pion, and kaon L/T separated cross section measurements at the 12 GeV Jefferson Lab and development of measurements of the, to date, mostly unknown pion and kaon structure functions at a potential future Electron-Ion Collider.

PUBLICATIONS PRODUCED AS A RESULT OF THIS RESEARCH

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(Showing: 1 - 10 of 13)
Aguilar, Arlene C. and Ahmed, Zafir and Aidala, Christine and Ali, Salina and Andrieux, Vincent and Arrington, John and Bashir, Adnan and Berdnikov, Vladimir and Binosi, Daniele and Chang, Lei and Chen, Chen and Chen, Muyang and de Melo, João Pacheco and "Pion and kaon structure at the electron-ion collider" The European Physical Journal A , v.55 , 2019 10.1140/epja/i2019-12885-0 Citation Details
Albayrak, I. and Mamyan, V. and Christy, M. E. and Ahmidouch, A. and Arrington, J. and Asaturyan, A. and Bodek, A. and Bosted, P. and Bradford, R. and Brash, E. and Bruell, A. and Butuceanu, C. and Coleman, S. J. and Commisso, M. and Connell, S. H. and Da "Measurements of Nonsinglet Moments of the Nucleon Structure Functions and Comparison to Predictions from Lattice QCD for Q2=4 Physical Review Letters , v.123 , 2019 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.022501 Citation Details
Armstrong, W. and Kang, H. and Liyanage, A. and Maxwell, J. and Mulholland, J. and Ndukum, L. and Ahmidouch, A. and Albayrak, I. and Asaturyan, A. and Ates, O. and Baghdasaryan, H. and Boeglin, W. and Bosted, P. and Brash, E. and Butuceanu, C. and Bychkov "Revealing Color Forces with Transverse Polarized Electron Scattering" Physical Review Letters , v.122 , 2019 https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.122.022002 Citation Details
Basnet, S. and Huber, G. M. and Li, W. B. and Blok, H. P. and Gaskell, D. and Horn, T. and Aniol, K. and Arrington, J. and Beise, E. J. and Boeglin, W. and Brash, E. J. and Breuer, H. and Chang, C. C. and Christy, M. E. and Ent, R. and Gibson, E. and Holt "Exclusive + electroproduction off the proton from low to high t" Physical Review C , v.100 , 2019 10.1103/PhysRevC.100.065204 Citation Details
Benali, M. and Desnault, C. and Mazouz, M. and Ahmed, Z. and Albataineh, H. and Allada, K. and Aniol, K. A. and Bellini, V. and Boeglin, W. and Bertin, P. and Brossard, M. and Camsonne, A. and Canan, M. and Chandavar, S. and Chen, C. and Chen, J.-P. and D "Deeply virtual Compton scattering off the neutron" Nature Physics , v.16 , 2020 10.1038/s41567-019-0774-3 Citation Details
Carmignotto, M. and Ali, S. and Aniol, K. and Arrington, J. and Barrett, B. and Beise, E. J. and Blok, H. P. and Boeglin, W. and Brash, E. J. and Breuer, H. and Chang, C. C. and Christy, M. E. and Dittmann, A. and Ent, R. and Fenker, H. and Gaskell, D. an "Separated kaon electroproduction cross section and the kaon form factor from 6 GeV JLab data" Physical Review C , v.97 , 2018 10.1103/PhysRevC.97.025204 Citation Details
Cisbani, E. and Dotto, A. Del and Fanelli, C. and Williams, M. and Alfred, M. and Barbosa, F. and Barion, L. and Berdnikov, V. and Brooks, W. and Cao, T. and Contalbrigo, M. and Danagoulian, S. and Datta, A. and Demarteau, M. and Denisov, A. and Diefentha "AI-optimized detector design for the future Electron-Ion Collider: the dual-radiator RICH case" Journal of Instrumentation , v.15 , 2020 10.1088/1748-0221/15/05/P05009 Citation Details
Day, D. and Degtiarenko, P. and Dobbs, S. and Ent, R. and Hamilton, D.J. and Horn, T. and Keller, D. and Keppel, C. and Niculescu, G. and Reid, P. and Strakovsky, I. and Wojtsekhowski, B. and Zhang, J. "A conceptual design study of a Compact Photon Source (CPS) for Jefferson Lab" Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment , v.957 , 2020 10.1016/j.nima.2020.163429 Citation Details
Grzonka, D. and Alfs, D. and Asaturyan, A. and Carmignotto, M. and Diermaier, M. and Eyrich, W. and G?owacz, B. and Hauenstein, F. and Horn, T. and Kilian, K. and Lersch, D. and Malbrunot-Ettenauer, S. and Mkrtchyan, A. and Mkrtchyan, H. and Moskal, P. an "Search for polarized antiproton production" Hyperfine Interactions , v.240 , 2019 10.1007/s10751-019-1565-z Citation Details
Horn, T. and Berdnikov, V.V. and Ali, S. and Asaturyan, A. and Carmignotto, M. and Crafts, J. and Demarque, A. and Ent, R. and Hull, G. and Ko, H.-S. and Mostafavi, M. and Munoz-Camacho, C. and Mkrtchyan, A. and Mkrtchyan, H. and Nguyen Trung, T. and Pegg "Scintillating crystals for the Neutral Particle Spectrometer in Hall C at JLab" Nuclear Instruments and Methods in Physics Research Section A: Accelerators, Spectrometers, Detectors and Associated Equipment , v.956 , 2020 10.1016/j.nima.2019.163375 Citation Details
Horn, Tanja "Pion and kaon structure functions at an electron-ion collider" AIP Conference Proceedings , v.1970 , 2018 10.1063/1.5040208 Citation Details
(Showing: 1 - 10 of 13)

PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT

Disclaimer

This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.

The underlying goal of nuclear physics research is the fundamental understanding of the origin and structure of atomic nuclei in terms of their basic constituents, the quarks and gluons. Atoms and molecules would not exist without underlying quark-gluon interactions, which build nearly all the mass of the visible universe from an assembly of massless gluons and nearly-massless quarks. This project plays a crucial role in this through mapping of the structure and interactions of the valence quarks of strongly interacting systems, specifically pions and kaons. Indeed, the pions and kaons appear to be the key to the further understanding of the emergent mass and structure mechanism. Unraveling their exact partonic structure and interplay with the Higgs mass mechanism is an underlying goal of this project. This is done through the measurements of form factors, the most basic quantity towards understanding pion and kaon structure, and validation of the reaction mechanisms to allow for probing the Generalized Parton Distributions (GPDs), which can be viewed as spatial densities at different values of the longitudinal momentum of the quark. Research carried out under this award produced customized equipment and data analysis results important for probing pion and kaon form factors and for validating of understanding hard exclusive and semi-inclusive scattering processes towards 3D hadron imaging at the 12 GeV Jefferson Lab and towards the EIC. Research from this award resulted in 39 presentations (18 invited, 18 by students) at conferences and professional meetings, two PhD theses, 42 papers published or being prepared for submission in peer reviewed journals over the past four years. 


The broader impacts of this project are twofold: training the next generation of scientists and raising the profile of minority scientists. For their future careers, students benefit greatly from putting into practice the laboratory procedures and theoretical concepts they encountered in their classes. This project provided students with new opportunities to expand their knowledge in physics and develop important practical skills. It provided training opportunities for 8 undergraduate students, 6 high school students, six graduate students, and two postdoctoral researchers. These opportunities resulted in 18 student presentations at international and domestic research conferences and professional meetings. In physics, where recruitment of talented students is always a priority, women and minorities provide an essential asset for the community. 14 of the 20 students supported by this award are from underrepresented groups. Six former female high school interns who worked on this project decided to pursue university degrees in physics. Both students and young scientists involved in this project received training and gained experience in both hardware and software, including electronics, detector systems, computer simulations, and data analysis. Doctoral students trained in this manner contribute to the nation’s technical infrastructure. A large fraction of these students may go and work outside of academia, making use of the skills they acquired in solving complex technical problems. The project thus contributes to providing the US with a technically trained workforce.

 


Last Modified: 11/24/2021
Modified by: Tanja Horn

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