RUI-Meson Spectroscopy with GlueX and CLAS12 at Jefferson Lab

Norfolk State University, Norfolk VA

Investigators

Abstract

In spite of the overall great success of the current theory of nuclear and particle physics, some sectors of this model lack quantitative understanding. One such sector is the way the strong force produces the wide variety of particles called “hadrons” (protons, neutrons,…and the less massive “mesons”). The strong force, described by what is called Quantum-Chromodynamics (QCD), is also responsible for most of nuclear structure and reactions. This award supports a professor and two undergraduate students from Norfolk State University (NSU) to participate in the study of the strong force as members of the GlueX and MesonEx (CLAS12) experiments at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility located in Newport News, Virginia. The research program aims to identify new forms of sub-atomic particles (“exotics”), predicted by QCD, that can greatly contribute to the understanding of the strong force. These “exotics” are a manifestation of the strong force that otherwise is hidden and confined inside the hadrons. NSU faculty and undergraduate students have developed software and hardware to perform these studies. More recently they have developed new software for the analysis of big data sets obtained by those experiments. This award will continue those developments by including the latest advances in machine learning techniques, exploring new statistical techniques, computer hardware options and software programing languages. They will also participate in the analysis of data already collected by both experiments. The NSU campus is close to Jefferson Lab, providing NSU students opportunities to participate in research all year around. A goal of this project is to strengthen the participation of underrepresented minorities in nuclear and particle physics research. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), such as NSU, have been very successful in retaining minority students at the undergraduate level and introducing them to graduate programs in STEM disciplines. Meson spectroscopy is of fundamental importance for the understanding of the strong interaction at intermediate energies with the goal of finding details about QCD confinement. This project proposes to continue Norfolk State University’s (NSU) participation on Meson Spectroscopy at the GlueX (Hall D) and MesonEx (CLAS12-Hall B) experiments at Jefferson Lab. NSU had been involved in hardware construction and software development for both experiments, and in the data analysis of previous CLAS6 (JLab-Hall B) experiments related to meson photo-production. The NSU group will be involved in the analyses of the meson’s final states from data already collected by GlueX and CLAS12 (MesonEx). They will also continue software development, in particular, the necessary software to perform full Partial Wave Analysis (PWA) of few body final states. The next couple of years will be the time to bring to a conclusion the analysis of data from GlueX and MesonEx runs, both exploring the production of exotic hadrons and expanding on current meson spectroscopy. The PI and NSU students have been involved in the development of a software framework for PWA, called PyPWA, for the last several years. They have been working in collaboration with members of the theory group at JLab (JPAC), collaborators from CLAS12 and GlueX to produce a more efficient, user friendly and fast analysis code for the study of meson spectroscopy. GlueX and MesonEx have obtained data with much better systematic and statistical uncertainties then previous spectroscopy experiments and exposed the limitations of the previously existing methods of analysis. New refinements are required with a close collaboration between theorists (models) and experimentalists (software) and between baryon and meson spectroscopy groups. Specifically, studies of the final states Δ++ (search for exotics) and p (strangeonia) will be performed by NSU’s students under the PI’s supervision. Software developments will include the utilization of new hardware (i.e. GPUs using CUDA) and software (i.e. Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods of pattern recognition, as Bayesian Neural Networks - BNN). This project will allow NSU’s faculty and undergraduate students the opportunity to participate in the analysis of data from experiments at the forefront of nuclear physics research. NSU is one of the leading HBCU’s in the country and its main campus is conveniently located at a short distance from Jefferson Lab. The PI has a long record of involving minority students at Jefferson Lab. This award will continue to provide opportunities to underrepresented minorities and strengthen diversity in nuclear physics research. 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.