Scattering and Reactions of Intermediate Energy Projectiles

Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Brunswick NJ

Investigators

Abstract

This grant will support the continuation of the experimental research program of the intermediate energy experimental nuclear physics group at Rutgers University. The experimental work will be carried out at Jefferson Laboratory in Newport News, Virginia, and Fermilab, in Batavia, Illinois. The main interests of the group, and of the laboratory, are in experiments designed to unfold the quark structure of nuclei and nucleons. The JLab experiments concentrate on uncovering the structure and substructure of the nucleon. These will continue previous work on the form factors and begin a new series of experiments studying the transverse quark momentum distributions. The experiments being developed for Fermilab, in Batavia, Illinois, which will explore the quark structure of free and bound nuclei using neutrinos, and the quark sea of the nucleon using proton beams and quark-anti-quark annihilation through the Drell-Yan process. The high flux neutrino beams will allow high statistics experiments providing information on the nuclear effects in deep inelastic scattering of neutrinos for the first time. The broader impact of this project is primarily in the training of students, both at the graduate and post-doctoral level. The training they receive in the process of doing basic research has led to careers in a variety of areas, from medical physics to national security to financial analysis, in addition to continued work in fundamental physics research. This proposal continues the support and training of women students that has been a long tradition of the Rutgers nuclear physics program.